


Say You'll Love Me Either Way

by arrestedbyyourlove



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Best Friends, Bisexual Harry, Car Accidents, Cats, Chaptered, Crying, Cuddling, Cute, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Louis, Happy Ending, Harry had a girlfriend before Louis but she's nice I promise lol, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Living Together, Lots of Crying, M/M, Memory Loss, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Relationship(s), Romance, Spooning, some smut eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4743452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrestedbyyourlove/pseuds/arrestedbyyourlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe. Louis is a student, Harry works. They've been best friends for years. I've made them both the same age (22), because they went to secondary school together and stuff.</p><p>After a horrible car accident, Louis ends up in a coma. When he finally wakes up, things aren't quite the same. It's 2016 and he's lost a year's worth of his memories. His best friend Harry has some surprising news: they're together. A couple. Harry is completely devastated when he hears about Louis' amnesia, but they try to make it work.</p><p>Title is from the song A Toast To The Future Kids by Emarosa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**LOUIS POV**

I woke up with the worst headache I’d ever experienced in my life. My head was pounding and the rest of my body aching. As I tried to pry my eyes open, I was met by a blinding light, causing my eyelids to quickly fall shut again. I faintly heard voices around me, but couldn’t quite make out who they belonged to.

“Oh my god. Love? Are you awake?” a voice asked. I felt two strong hands envelop my cheeks and soft lips pressing against my own. Something wet fell onto my face. A tear?

“Jay, get a doctor quick! I think he’s waking up!”

Hearing things more clearly now, I realized the voice belonged to my best friend, Harry. I wished I could tell him to stop talking so loudly, but my mouth didn’t want to cooperate. My mind felt hazy. What the hell was going on? When I finally managed to open up my eyes completely, I saw the blurry figure of a woman walk through the door with a man in white clothing aside of her. I blinked a few times and recognized her as my mother. The man next to her looked like a doctor and it started to become clear to me that I was in a hospital.

“I need to do some tests,” the man said, looking at Harry and my mum. “Could you leave me alone with him for a few minutes? I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

They nodded and left the room. The man walked up towards me and smiled, seeming friendly enough. “Hi, my name is doctor Harvey,” he said. “How are you feeling? Any pain?”

“My head hurts,” I rasped, voice sounding scratchy as hell.

The man nodded. “Do you remember what happened?”

I tried to think, but nothing came to mind. I honestly had no idea what I was doing here, other than the obvious pain I felt in my body. What had happened to me? “No…” I answered.

“You were in a car accident and hit your head pretty hard. Does that sound familiar?”

A car accident? I didn’t even have a car, though I did have my license. Had I crashed my mother’s car? Or maybe even Harry’s? I tried to shake ‘no’ in response to the doctor, but stopped immediately as it caused a sharp pain to go through my head.

“Try not to move too much. You’re still healing.”

“Right,” I groaned, wincing. Any slight movement hurt, so it must’ve been a bad accident. “I don’t remember any of that. Who was with me? Did anyone get hurt?” I asked, starting to feel a bit worried.

“No,” the doctor reassured me. “You were alone in the car. Nobody else got hurt, fortunately. You don’t remember anything about the accident at all?”

“No,” I said.

“Could you tell me your name, please?”

I frowned, confused by the question. Why would he ask me that? If he was my doctor, shouldn’t he already know my name? “Louis Tomlinson,” I answered.

“Excellent. And your age?”

“Twenty one.” I thought I could see his brow furrow for just a second, but maybe I’d just imagined it. I could tell he was trying really hard to keep his expression neutral and not reveal any of his thoughts to me.

“Could you tell me what date it is?” he continued.

It didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t responded to my previous answer. I sighed, getting somewhat annoyed that he wasn’t just telling me what was going on. If there was something wrong with me, I had the right to know. “How am I supposed to know that?” I snapped, not really caring that I sounded rude. "I don’t even know for how long I’ve been in here.”

“About two weeks,” he said, ignoring my burst of anger. “If you could just tell me the month and year, Mr. Tomlinson?”

“December 2014,” I told him, hoping that would shut him up. But this time, the doc hadn’t been able to keep a neutral face. Judging from the way he was looking at me, with obvious pity in his eyes, it hadn’t been the right answer.

 

**HARRY POV**

Tears streamed down my face as I sat down in the waiting room, next to Louis’ mother Jay. The doctor had sent us away and the only thing left for us to do now, was wait. Louis had finally woken up from his coma. We’d been waiting for that to happen for two weeks now. That might not seem long, but to me it felt like a lifetime. Seeing Louis’ eye twitch and hearing that soft sound coming from his mouth had been the happiest moment of my life. Never had I felt such an intense moment of relief, knowing he was about to wake up and I hadn’t lost him forever.

Jay wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Shhh. He’s awake, love. It’s all going to be okay now.”

I let out a nervous laugh, wiping the tears from my face. “I’m just so happy, Jay. I thought…”

“I know, honey. We’ve all been very scared.”

I felt so grateful to have Louis’ mum here with me. She’d gotten me through this hard time and loved me as if I were her own child. I’d called in sick at work to be with Louis as much as possible the past weeks, but I couldn’t stay in the hospital all day. Jay had offered to let me stay at her house for a little while. I’d happily accepted that, because going home and worrying about Louis by myself would have driven me nuts.

Jay and I couldn’t seem to stop crying, overjoyed with this happy turn of events. We were no longer able to control our emotions as we waited for the doctor to come back and give us more information. I couldn’t wait to see Louis again and talk to him. I’d missed him so much.

Seeing the doctor approach finally, I sprang up from my chair. “How is he?” I asked.

“Mr. Tomlinson is doing fine, but there have been some complications.” He moved his gaze from me to Jay. “It seems like your son is suffering from amnesia. I did some tests, asked some questions and I’m afraid that he has lost about a year’s worth of his memories.”

And in that moment, my world completely shattered. It was crazy how the happiest moment of your life could change into a horrible nightmare in just a few seconds. The doctor wasn’t done talking, but I couldn’t process the sounds around me anymore. I felt completely numb. A year’s worth of memories. A year. Twelve months. This couldn’t be happening. This was a sick joke. This couldn’t be true.

My head was spinning as I tried to make sense of the situation, but deep down I already knew exactly what this meant for us. Today was January 15th, 2016. Louis and I had started dating last April, so about nine months ago. If he’d truly lost an entire year, that meant he wouldn’t remember our relationship. He’d still remember who I was, of course. We’d known each other since the beginning of secondary school and had been best friends ever since, but so much had changed between us… We’d fallen for each other. We weren’t just best friends anymore. We were lovers. Boyfriends. But Louis wouldn’t remember any of that.

Without fully registering it, I’d started crying again. I could feel my heart breaking more every second. Someone’s arms wrapped around me, but all feeling had left my body. How could this be happening?

“Honey… are you okay? Say something, please.” Jay held my face in her hands and looked at me, her expression full of concern. She started caressing my curly hair in an attempt to comfort me and then wiped her thumbs across my cheeks, removing the tears.

“He won’t remember,” I choked out, barely audible. How could I ever face him again?

She gave me a pained look. “I know, love… Come, you should sit down.”

Jay moved me onto the chair and I followed her lead, sitting down. I noticed that she was crying, too. Maybe because she felt the same pain as I did, but more likely because she felt sorry for me. It didn’t matter. Louis had lost the happiest time of his life. And I had lost mine.

I let out a strangled sob. “How will we get through this, Jay?” I asked, feeling desperate. Of course she couldn’t answer that question, but I needed someone to tell me this was going to be fine. That we’d get through this. Louis and I, and everyone else around us.

“I don’t know…” she whispered. “But he’s okay, Harry. He’s alive and that’s the most important thing right now.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So many conflicting emotions were tearing at my heart. I was so incredibly grateful that Louis was alive. That I’d be able to hear his voice again and see his gorgeous smile. But I couldn’t push the thought away that he would never love me again. We’d had such an amazing time together and all of that was lost. Gone. As if it never even happened.

“Do you want to go see him?” Jay asked. “The doctor says we’re allowed to.”

I avoided her gaze, a feeling of dread settling in my stomach. I wanted to see him and talk to him so badly, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to show my affection. I couldn’t kiss him, touch him… He wouldn’t let me. He wasn’t in love with me anymore. “I… I don’t know if I can.”

“I think he’d like to see you, Harry. He needs us.”

The pain in my heart kept getting worse and worse. How could I be there for him, if I felt this horrible pain? “I… I can’t be there for him right now. I need some air, I’m sorry.”

I stood up from the chair and started walking toward the exit. She didn’t come after me.

 

**LOUIS POV**

I’d already guessed what was wrong with me before the doctor told me. All the weird questions had made it pretty clear, and of course the fact that I couldn’t remember the accident was a big clue too. I had amnesia.

It felt weird to be in the future. Twenty sixteen. That didn’t sound right at all, but I supposed it never really did in a new year. I’d missed 2015 altogether, which was a crazy thing. Surprisingly, the world still seemed pretty normal. No crazy inventions had happened. No holograms or human clones, no miracle cure for cancer. Everything was pretty much the same, the world was just a year older, including myself. I’d even missed my twenty-second birthday.

Well, actually, I hadn’t _missed_ anything. 2015 had happened, and I had been there. I just couldn’t remember it. It was weird to think of it that way… To me, it really did feel like I’d woken up in the future, but to everyone else I was living in the past…

When my mum walked into the room, I was relieved to see a familiar face. I’d seen her when I’d first woken up, but I hadn’t been able to really look at her then. She looked as I remembered, slightly different haircut aside. She was very emotional, constantly crying, which I really didn’t like to see. It wasn’t necessary, either. I'd be out of this hospital in no time and everything would be back to normal.

She told me a bit more about the accident. I’d been driving my car – apparently I owned a car now – to go to her house for New Year’s. The roads had been covered in snow, which had made me slip and crash into a tree at the side of the road. The car had been ruined and I’d been very lucky to be alive.

I was still talking to my mum when I spotted Harry standing in the doorway. He did look different than I remembered him, which was weird, because it felt like I’d seen him just a few days ago. His curly hair had grown quite a bit. It was past his shoulders now and it looked absolutely stunning on him. But other than that, he didn’t look so great. His eyes were stained red from crying and it seemed like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while. I instantly felt worried about him. What was wrong?

When my mum noticed him, she quickly stood up and walked up to Harry. “I’ll leave you guys alone to talk,” she said, softly squeezing his shoulder and giving him an encouraging nod. What was this about?

Harry hesitated, but then stepped into my room. “Um, hi,” he said, nervously.

I smiled, happy to see him. “Hey. Are you okay?”

A sigh escaped his mouth as he sat down on the chair beside my bed. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but I think you look just as bad as I do.” I actually had no idea how I looked, but it was probably bad, considering the way I felt. I expected my remark to draw a smile from him, but the expression on his face remained dark.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I frowned, not sure what he was apologizing for. This was not the Harry I was used to. It was obvious that he wasn’t in a good place and I knew there had to be more to it than just my accident… “What’s going on?” I asked.

“The doctor told you about your memory loss, right?” he said, avoiding my gaze.

“Yeah, he did. I can’t believe I missed New Year’s day twice…”

That didn’t make him smile either.

“Some things have changed between us,” Harry continued.

“Bad things?” I asked, afraid for what was about to come. Weren’t we friends anymore?

Tears started rolling down Harry’s face, completely startling me. I hadn’t seen Harry cry in ages. This was bad. This was really bad. I reached for his hand in reflex and at first I thought he might pull away, but he didn’t. “Hey…” I said, wanting to comfort him. “Tell me, please? What’s wrong?”

“We…” he started choking up. “We fell in love.”

My eyes widened in shock. I didn’t know what answer I had been expecting from him, but it certainly wasn’t that. Thinking back to the moment I’d first woken up, I realized I must not have imagined him kissing me.

“You love me?” I brought out. It was such a lame question, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think I would ever be in a serious relationship with someone who actually _loved_ me, let alone with Harry. The guy I’d been friends with, basically all my life.

He looked at me and nodded, a smile finally breaking through the tears that were still falling down his cheeks. “I love you so much…” he said and his voice broke.

I felt a pain in my chest at seeing Harry like this. He seemed so lost and completely heartbroken. I wanted to make him feel better, but how? I couldn’t imagine how he must feel. We had been in love… and I couldn’t remember any of it. So many questions went through my mind all at once. How had this happened? Had I fallen for him, or was it the other way around? Was Harry suddenly interested in dating guys? And what about his girlfriend? Had they broken up because of this?

“How long have we been together?” I blurted out, immediately regretting it. He obviously wasn’t in the mood for questions right now. I looked at him apologetically. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. You probably don’t want to talk about this…”

He wiped the tears from his face and muttered, “God, I’m a mess…” Then he looked back at me. “No, um… it’s fine. Of course you have questions.”

“Really, Haz, we can talk about this later. I don’t want to upset you any further.”

He sighed and gave me a sad smile. “Alright. Thank you… You should probably get some rest, anyway.”

He fidgeted with his fingers. I could tell he didn’t know how to act around me and it made my heart ache for the both of us. We shouldn’t feel this way around each other. We were best friends… Would our friendship suffer because of this? I needed some time to think about what this all meant for us. That was going to be difficult, with no possible way to get more information about the situation. Unless I talked to my mother about it, but I doubted she would tell me much. “You’re right. I should get some sleep. Will I see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Um, yeah sure. Of course. I’ll be here.”

**HARRY POV**

Jay wanted to stay at the hospital a little longer, but I went home after I’d visited Louis. I decided to call my mum and hoped she’d pick up the phone. She was really busy with her charity work these days, so I wasn’t sure if she would have time to talk to me. When she’d heard about Louis’ accident she’d wanted to come visit me immediately, but I’d talked her out of that. Her work was more important.

“Honey?” she said, as she answered.

“Hi, mum,” I responded, taking comfort in hearing her voice again. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all, love. Are you okay?”

I let out a breath of relief. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ve got some good news, actually. Louis woke up today.”

She gasped. “Really? Oh, honey, that’s amazing! You must be so happy.”

“I am,” I said quietly.

“You don’t sound it. What’s wrong, Harry?”

I sighed, not wanting to speak the words. “He woke up, but he’s not the same. He–” My voice choked up and I tried to clear it. “He doesn’t remember that we’re a couple.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “But how is that possible?”

“I don’t know. He just woke up thinking it was the end of twenty fourteen and we weren’t together yet, back then. He has amnesia.”

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry,” she said, sounding horrified. “I wish I could be there for you. If I could, I would drive your way right now. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “I know, mum. But that’s not necessary. Jay and my friends are here.”

“Okay, I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Are you sure you are okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, mum. I just need some rest. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yes, get some rest. Stay strong, love. Call me if you need me.”

“Thank you. I will. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I hung up, thankful that I got to talk to her for a bit. Next, I called our friends Rachel and Lily to tell them the good news and after that I was completely exhausted. They’d been very happy to hear that Louis had woken up, but I didn’t have the courage or energy to tell them that he had amnesia. They were going to visit him tomorrow so he could tell them himself, I guessed. I tried to fake my happiness as well as I could on the phone, but they could probably tell there was something wrong with me.

Louis would still remember both girls. I’d met Lily at work about two years ago and the three of us were great friends. Rachel was my ex-girlfriend, who had gone to the same secondary school as me and Louis. In December 2014, which was as far as Louis remembered, Rachel and I had still been a couple. It surprised me that he hadn’t asked anything about that. At the time, Louis hadn’t even known that I was bisexual, so he must be quite confused about that. I knew I should’ve explained it all to him, but I’d been relieved when he said I didn’t have to answer any questions. I was too emotional to talk about it.

Being around Louis was hard. The worst thing was that I wanted nothing more than to go to _him_ for comfort, which was impossible. He didn’t feel my pain, because he didn’t truly know what we had lost. There was no way for him to help me.

**FLASHBACK - HARRY POV**

_After two months of struggling with my feelings for Louis, I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to tell Rachel today. I couldn’t lie to her anymore._

_Rachel and I hadn’t been intimate for a long time. We’d been growing apart romantically long before I started seeing Louis in a different light. I loved Rachel with all my heart. She was my best friend, just like Louis was, but things just weren’t the same anymore. I was too scared to break things off, because I still loved her and we’d been together for almost five years. We were a huge part of each other’s life and you didn’t just end that like it was nothing…_

_Deep down, we both already knew it was over and it had been for a while. We just hadn’t officially spoken the words. Whenever we would hang out, it was never romantic anymore. A soft kiss on the lips to greet her, out of habit, and then nothing. Just chatting and laughing like we’d always done. We also didn’t live together anymore. A year ago, she’d rented a small apartment to be closer to her college and I’d stayed home for my job._

_I typed in her number on my phone and pressed the call button, before I could change my mind about this._

_“Hey, what’s up?” she answered, sounding cheerful._

_“Hey. Um, I’d like to talk to you about something. Can I pick you up later, so we can talk at our house?” I still called it ‘our house’. We had rented it together, so it felt as much hers as it did mine._

_“Yeah, sure. I’ll call you when I’m done here.”_

_“Okay, great.”_

_“See you then. Love you.”_

_“Love you too,” I said and I hung up, already dreading that evening._

***

_To get my mind off of things, I went to the pool and did some laps for two hours straight. I’d always loved swimming, but this time it didn’t really make me feel better. I was still mentally rehearsing everything I was going to say to Rachel and making up all kinds of doom scenario’s, depending on what her reaction would be. I knew she wouldn’t be surprised if I told her I wanted to break up. She might be a bit stunned at first, because we’d never discussed it before. But she’d agree with me, I thought. We hadn’t been a proper couple for a long time._

_How she’d react to my feelings for Louis, on the other hand… I had no clue. She’d known Louis as long as I had and they didn’t always get along, but she tolerated his sarcastic, teasing nature for my sake. I wasn’t sure if she even liked him at all, but sometimes I thought she was exaggerating her annoyance with him a little bit. They had a weird dynamic, those two._

_Soon after I got out of the pool, Rachel called to say that I could come pick her up. When I drove into the college parking lot, I already saw her standing there, waiting for me. She walked up to the car and got into the passenger seat next to me._

_I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hey. How was today?”_

_She sighed. “Kind of stressful, actually. I had some poetry classes.”_

_Rachel studied English at uni. She loved it, but poetry wasn’t her strong suit. She struggled quite a bit with those classes and it always gave her a bad feeling, sitting in class, waiting to be asked a question she probably wouldn’t know the answer to. Whenever she’d have a class like that, her mood would usually drop to below zero, but fortunately she didn’t seem too upset right now._

_I smiled sympathetically. “Oh. Well, you survived, at least.”_

_“Yay, me. Can we go pick up some food? I’m starving.”_

_“Sure. Chinese?”_

_“You know me too well,” she grinned._

_We picked up the food and drove home. I quickly went into the kitchen to grab some plates and cutlery while Rachel stalled out the food on the dinner table. “Mmm. This smells delicious.”_

_I smiled as we both sat down at the table. “Definitely.”_

_“So, what did you want to talk about? You sounded quite serious on the phone.”_

_“Right… Um… I don’t really know where to begin.” I’d gone through all the possible ways to tell her this about a million times, but suddenly I’d forgotten all of them. It seemed so much harder now._

_“What’s the general topic?” she asked._

_“Um, it’s about us…” I said slowly, putting emphasis on the word ‘us’._

_Understanding dawned on her face, her smile fading. “Oh.”_

_I inhaled and decided to just start talking, or I’d never have the courage again. “We haven’t been very close recently… I mean, not romantically.”_

_She bit her lip, seeming nervous. “Um, no,” she said, her voice soft._

_“I think… we’ve grown apart a bit in that aspect.”_

_She nodded, looking down at her food. An awkward silence followed. I wished she would say something._

_“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, for lack of anything better to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete jerk._

_“I know…” she said, taking a deep breath. “I think you’re right. We have grown apart. We shouldn’t go on like this.”_

_A flood of relief went through me and I finally felt like I could breathe normally again. She agreed with me. Thank god._

_“I know I haven’t been a great girlfriend lately. I’m sorry for that.”_

_I frowned and shook my head. “No, don’t say that. We’ve both been busy with other things and you know… I guess we just didn’t want to acknowledge that we’re not the same as we used to be.”_

_A tear started rolling down Rachel’s cheek and she quickly wiped at it. I looked at her, feeling horrified that I’d hurt her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cry.” she said. “I really do agree with you. I’m just overly emotional. You know me…”_

_I smiled and put my hand on top of hers. “You’re allowed to be upset. This is a big change.”_

_She nodded, trying to clear her head. After a while she said, “Can I ask you something?”_

_I nodded. “Yeah, anything.”_

_“Do you like Louis?”_

_I stared at her, completely in shock, not sure if she was asking what I thought she was asking. “What?”_

_“Please don’t be offended. That’s not my intention at all and I swear I won’t be angry if this is true. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but… I’ve just seen you look at him in a way, you know… How you used to look at me.”_

_I was stunned, and couldn’t seem to remember how to speak. She knew. Rachel had suspected this. She knew I was in love with Louis and I didn’t even have to tell her. She also didn’t seem to have a problem with it… “You know?”_

_She smiled at my confirmation. “You’re not exactly subtle about it.”_

_I frowned. “I’m not?”_

_She shrugged, laughing softly. “Maybe it’s more obvious to me, because I’ve known you for such a long time. I don’t know, I’ve just been noticing little things between you two. How you look at him, how you touch him sometimes…”_

_“Huh,” I said, all of this still feeling surreal. But what she said was true. I had been getting more awkward about touching Louis, since these feelings had come to the surface. I would unconsciously touch him sometimes in a more-than-friendly way and as soon as I realized what I was doing, I’d quickly pull away. We used to be so easy around each other and that had changed, at least for me. I’d gotten more and more self-conscious._

_“You’re really fine with this?” I asked. “You have to know, our relationship was very real to me, Rach. I loved you with all my heart.”_

_She nodded. “Of course I know that, Harry. I’m sad it’s over between us, but you’re allowed to be attracted to both guys and girls. Why would I have a problem with that?”_

_I sighed, slowly nodding. “Okay. I just didn’t want you to think I used you to seem straight or anything. I would never do that to you.”_

_“I know. So… does Louis know?”_

_“No, I haven’t told him, yet. You were the first person I was going to tell today, but I guess you beat me to it.”_

_She smiled. “I’m glad you wanted to tell me first, Harry. But what I don’t understand is… why didn’t you ever tell me you liked guys too?”_

_I sighed, looking down. I had been thinking about this a lot, actually. It had never really occurred to me that I might be bisexual, however stupid that might sound. Thinking back on it now, it seemed incredibly obvious. I’d always liked girls and because of my long relationship with Rachel, I had just assumed that meant I was straight. I did feel attraction towards men as well, but I tried to rationalize that by thinking most men must feel that way every once in a while…_

_“I didn’t think I was,” I admitted, explaining the rest to her._

_After hearing me out, she nodded. “That makes more sense than you think. So this is the first time you’ve fallen for a guy?”_

_“Yeah…”_

_She stood up from her chair and walked over to me, her arms inviting me. “Come.”_

_I smiled, standing up and wrapping my arms tightly around her. She softly rubbed her hands over my back. “I’m glad we had this talk, Hazzy. And you know… You and Louis are great together. I’m sure he will understand and who knows? Maybe he’ll feel something for you too.”_

_I smiled. “Maybe…”_

_“Just promise me we’ll stay friends, okay?”_

_“Oh, of course, Rach. You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**LOUIS POV**

I heard a soft knock on the door of my hospital room, which already stood wide open. Seeing Rachel in the doorway was a surprising sight, since I’d apparently stolen her boyfriend and all that. I was even more surprised when she walked up to me to give me a warming hug. “I’m glad you’re okay, Lou,” she said.

“Um, thanks…” I said, returning her hug. “I guess you’ve really broken up with Harry, huh?”

She laughed as she released me again, which was a nice change from all the crying I’d heard from my mum and Harry. I almost thought I’d lost the ability to make anyone smile.

“I guess you’ve really lost your memories, huh?” she joked.

I nodded. “Seems like it, yeah. Who told you? Harry?”

She shook her head. “Um, no. I heard from your mum. Harry didn’t mention it when I talked to him on the phone yesterday.”

“Oh, alright. So um… we’re good, then?”

“Of course we are, silly,” she said, sitting down on the chair. “I mean, you still annoy the shit out of me sometimes, but other than that… yeah, we’re fine. Why do you ask?”

I raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “You’re not mad at me for stealing Harry from you?”

“Oh, please. Do you really think it happened that way? Harry and I hadn’t been in love for a long time when we finally decided to break up.”

I frowned. “So you two didn’t break up because of me?”

“Well… kind of, but not really. We had already grown apart before he got feelings for you. However, being in love with you did make him realize that he couldn’t be with me any longer. I was surprised at first… but ultimately, I knew he was right. I kind of already suspected that he liked you. Long story short… he likes both guys and girls and I have no reason to be angry at you, so don’t worry.”

That was the most new information I’d gotten so far and it made a lot more sense than what I’d come up with in my head. When I’d been all alone in my room last night with nothing but my overactive imagination to keep me busy, I’d thought that maybe I’d fallen for Harry first and had made him cheat on Rachel with me. Fortunately that wasn’t true, so I didn’t have to feel like a horrible person. “Thank you for telling me. I was quite confused about it all. I haven’t had the chance to ask Harry anything, because he’s just so sad… I don’t want to make that worse by digging up painful memories about us.”

She nodded, a look of pity forming on her face. “Yeah, this must be really hard for him to deal with. I can’t even imagine.”

We both sat in silence for a while, but then she said, “On a more positive note… I have a new boyfriend now.”

“Oh, you do? And um… do I like this guy?”

She smiled. “Yeah, his name is Liam. You get along really well, actually. He won’t be happy to hear that you have no recollection of him at all.”

Great. So there were actual people in my life that I couldn’t remember at all. I hadn’t even considered that, yet. I let out a frustrated sigh. “Ugh. I don’t want to sound rude or anything, but this is just so weird for me, you know? I know I’m the reason people are feeling shit right now, but there’s no way for me to fix it. What can I do?”

“I don’t know, Louis, but I wouldn’t worry about Liam. He’ll win you back in no time,” she grinned. “And regarding Harry… Honestly, I think we should be relieved that you’re okay and that you’ve only lost one year of your memories, not ten or even your entire life. If you’d come to Harry like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ that would’ve been way worse, right? At least you remember your friendship with him!”

I laughed softly. “Not remembering Harry would mean I’d have woken up feeling like a twelve year old at the most. Now _that_ would’ve been awkward.”

“See? This isn’t so bad after all,” she said. “But seriously… Harry just needs some time to get used to the situation. Just be his friend, try to understand his perspective, but also explain how you feel. It’s not like you’re happy about any of this, either, right? Just remember that this isn’t your fault, so don’t feel guilty about it. You can get through this together, I’m sure of it.”

“Gee, when did you learn to give good advice like this? You understand this way better than I do.”

She gasped, mockingly. “Whoa! Was that an actual compliment coming from you?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe that hit on the head changed my personality, as well.”

“I seriously doubt that, Lou. But nice try.”

 

**HARRY POV**

I’d cried myself to sleep last night, feeling sorry for myself. I still didn’t feel great in the morning, but also didn’t think I had any tears left to cry. I’d already embarrassed myself enough in front of Louis and wasn’t about to do it again. He didn’t need me being a big baby right now. He needed to recover with happy, positive people around him. Yesterday I really tried to be there for him, but I just couldn’t keep my emotions in check. His questions were like a stab in the heart every time. A reminder of everything he didn’t know, didn’t remember. I knew he would ask more questions today, so I tried to prepare for them a little bit. It felt incredibly stupid, but necessary at the same time. If I had to fake being happy for Louis, then that was what I would do.

 

***

When I walked into the hospital room, Louis was sleeping. He looked lovely like that. A little sleeping angel, even with the bruises that were still on his face. I took a deep breath before I stepped into the room. I could do this. I was not going to cry today.

Walking up to the familiar chair, I tried to be as silent as possible, not wanting to wake him. He needed his sleep and just being close to him was enough for me right now. When Louis had still been in a coma, I would sit in this same chair for hours. I’d stare at him, hoping to see a sign of movement or anything that would indicate him possibly waking up soon. Of course that never happened. Eventually a nurse would come to send me home, telling me that I couldn’t sit there forever and that I needed sleep like everyone else, preferably in an actual bed. One time they’d let me sleep in the chair and even though that hadn’t been my most comfortable night, it felt nice to wake up and immediately see him there with me.

After a while Louis started moving around in the bed, his eyelids fluttering open. When he saw me sitting in the chair, he shot me a sleepy smile. “Hazza.”

His use of my nickname made me smile back at him. The urge to kiss or even just touch him was strong as ever, but I tried my best to ignore those feelings. “Hi. Didn’t mean to wake you, sorry.”

“That’s okay. Have you been here for long?”

I shook my head. “Few minutes.”

“Okay,” Louis nodded and tried to move himself to sit upwards. I saw him struggle and he winced, obviously in pain.

“Are you okay?” I asked, concerned. “Do you need some help?”

I reached out for him, but he waved me off. “No, I’m fine. It’s fine, really.”

“But thank you,” he quickly added, probably noticing that I was feeling somewhat uncomfortable. An awkward silence followed.

After a while, he started talking again. “So um… I noticed something the other day.”

I looked up, frowning but also feeling curious. “What?”

“On my left arm…”

Oh. _That_. I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. “Right. The tattoo.”

“So I guess that’s H for Harry, right?”

I nodded, feeling as though my own tattoo was burning through my shirt. I contemplated if I should tell him about it, but my expression already gave me away.

Louis narrowed his eyes at me. “What aren’t you telling me, _H_?” My cheeks reddened even more and his eyes widened. He pointed at me accusingly. “You have one too! I knew it! Show it to me right now!”

“Do I really have too?” I whined.

He hesitated for a moment. “Where do you have it?”

What, did he think it was on my bum or something? “Um, on my arm. Same spot as yours.”

“Then yeah, you have too!” he demanded. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe we actually got couple tattoos.”

I laughed at his outburst and started unbuttoning my long-sleeved shirt. “Alright, alright. Calm down, Lou. I’ll show you.” Admittedly, it _was_ kind of crazy that we had these tattoos, but I wouldn’t change it for a second. Taking off the shirt completely, I turned my left arm towards him and showed him the ‘L’ at the top. “There it is.”

Louis stared at it in awe. “Whoa. That’s sick.”

“Glad you like them,” I said, as I put my shirt back on.

“I guess I’d have a bit of a problem if I didn’t. But yeah, they’re nice. Not too big. It’s cute. Nice.” He was rambling now, which was quite amusing. “So, tell me something else. Anything about us.”

I frowned. “Like what?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Anything else I should know, other than the fact that I have your name permanently inked onto my skin?” he said, laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s just one letter, Lou. And actually, you did want to use our whole names, but I talked you out of that.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What, you didn’t want my full name on you?”

He actually sounded offended by that, and that made me happier than I cared to admit. “Oh, come on, Lou. People would’ve made fun of us big time. You’re like doomed to break up after you get someone’s name tattooed on your body.”

“Who cares? A name, a letter. Same thing.”

“With a letter you can pretend it’s for someone else, obviously.”

He huffed. “You’ll always know that’s a lie, though. It’s bad either way. But well, it doesn’t matter. We weren’t going to break up, anyway.”

I smiled at that. “How do you know?”

He looked down, shrugging. “I just do. The way people talk about our relationship, the way you cried that first day… Even the fact that we got those tattoos. It just seems like we were very serious.”

I cringed when he referenced my moment of weakness. But he was right, we had been really serious. Maybe the tattoos had been an impulsive decision, but I’d always liked the look of tattoos in general and we wanted to have some kind of symbol that represented us. A permanent one. So we just decided to go for it, with no hesitation.

I shook myself out of the memories. “Um yeah, I’m sorry I got so emotional.”

“No,” he immediately protested. “Don’t apologize, Haz. This is a horrible situation and we both know it. You’re allowed to feel shit. Don’t hide it from me, okay?”

“Okay,” I said softly. “Actually, I guess I _should_ tell you something else…”

He stared at me, seeming anxious for what I was about to say. He probably thought I was going to drop another bomb. Like the ‘we fell in love’ one, but this wasn’t quite as big. “It’s nothing bad,” I said quickly. “We just… um… we live together.”

His eyebrows shot up, eyes widening in surprise. “Are you shitting me?” he exclaimed.

I giggled at his response, unable to help myself. It felt kind of crazy to talk to Louis like this, as if he hadn’t experienced all of it himself. It made me sad, but also kind of curious. It would be interesting getting to know this new – or actually old – version of him. “Nope. I’m dead serious,” I responded. “We have an apartment together.”

He laughed. “Jesus. We sure didn’t waste any time, did we? I should’ve figured. And I guess it was time for me to leave my mom’s place, anyway.”

I hesitated, thinking about the fact that Louis would have to go back home in a couple of days. Would he want to come with me? Or would that be weird for him? “You still have your room at Jay’s place. I get it if you’d rather stay there when you’re allowed to leave the hospital…”

“Oh,” he knitted his brows, thinking about it. “Yeah, I guess. Shouldn’t I be in a familiar environment, though? To get my memories back, I mean?”

I sighed. I had no idea how this amnesia thing even worked. Would he ever get his memories back or would he stay like this forever? The thought of never getting my boyfriend back made me want to throw up. “I have no idea, Lou. It might help, but we don’t have a spare room, so you’d have to sleep on the couch. Which, considering the state you’re in, probably isn’t the best idea.”

His mouth curled up and he gave me a pointed look. “Hey, who says I’m the one who should sleep on the couch? I’ll take the bed, thank you very much. _You_ can take the couch.”

I attempted to look annoyed with him, but everyone and their mother knew I’d gladly sleep on the couch if that meant he’d come home with me. It actually was a great idea and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that myself. We could live in the same house and it didn’t have to be awkward. We’d just be roommates, in a way. “Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Fine,” he grinned, knowingly. “I guess I’ll come home, then.”

I smiled and realized that this talk with Louis had genuinely made me feel happy. I didn’t need to fake anything with him. No matter which version of him I was talking to, we’d always be best friends. And I would always love him.

“So, we’re not married, are we?” Louis asked, suddenly.

I almost choked on my own spit, coughing vigorously. Where did _that_ come from? “What? No, why would you ask me that?”

“Well, we’ve got tattoos, we live together… I don’t know, just checking, I guess.”

Maybe he had a point. “Don’t worry. We weren’t ready for that, yet.”

“Alright. Not yet, huh?” he grinned.

My cheeks reddened in embarrassment. I really had to watch what I was saying… “So um, has anyone else visited you today?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

He nodded, pointing at a _Get Well Soon_ card that I hadn’t spotted before. “Yeah, Rachel was here a while ago. She told me some stuff, about how you two broke up. I was a bit confused about that. She also showed me a picture of you and me on her phone.”

I looked down at my nails, nervously. “Oh, she told you about that? I’m sorry, I guess you should have heard it from me. I’m still adjusting to the idea that you can’t remember any of that stuff.”

“No, I get it. It’s fine,” he reassured me.

“So she showed you a picture of us? Which one?”

“Um, we were on the beach. You were taking a selfie of us while um… kissing me on the cheek. She said you stole her phone, just to do that.”

I smiled, thinking back to that moment. That had been a great day. We loved going to the beach together, even though we couldn’t do it a lot, seeing as we lived in England. “Yeah… I did do that. Her phone was just lying around, so I figured, why not?”

“How nice of you to shove our relationship in her face.”

I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, she loves seeing us together.”

“Yeah, she said that. I just can’t really wrap my head around it. Who likes to see their ex with someone else?”

I shrugged. “Rachel and I were mostly just friends the last year that we were together. I guess the people around us had a more romantic view of our relationship, you included. We should have broken up a lot sooner.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that you weren’t in love with her anymore?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed, feeling unnerved that I had to have this conversation with him again. It hadn’t been fun the first time, and it wasn’t fun now. “I didn’t think it was important and maybe I just didn’t want to face the facts.”

Louis nodded, letting me know that he understood. He looked at me intently. “The fact that you’re bi?”

“Yeah… But even just the fact that Rachel and I were over. You know, after being with her for such a long time it just felt nice to be with her. It felt… normal and comfortable. I knew breaking up with her would hurt her and I didn’t want that. My friendship with her meant a lot to me, so I just didn’t know how to handle the situation. And obviously I didn’t want to admit to myself – or to her – that I had fallen for my _other_ best friend.”

He smiled and looked down shyly. “Why did you? Fall for me?” he mumbled.

I was endeared by his question, but I couldn’t help but frown because of it. How was I supposed to answer that? “Are you seriously asking me that, Lou? I don’t know, it just happened, I guess…” I probably should have stopped right there with my answer, but my mouth kept going and I couldn’t stop myself. I felt a strange need to explain and make sense of it. Maybe because I still didn’t really know how it had happened myself. “We’re both very different, but somehow we just click, you know? I feel like you complement me in a lot of ways and I kept noticing that about us. You still surprise me sometimes with little things you do and say. And at some point I just started to have these… feelings when I was with you. Like a physical attraction. I mean, I always knew you were attractive, of course. But now I wanted to… act on it.”

I finally shut my mouth and desperately wanted to facepalm myself for saying all of that. Louis was staring at me now and this was one of the few times that I couldn’t read his expression. My cheeks heated up. “I’m so sorry. That sounded way more creepy than I intended.”

Louis snapped out of his stare and said, “No, um… I’m flattered, really.” He let out a hesitant laugh. “So every time I’ve changed clothes in front of you, you were secretly admiring my body?”

I laughed. I couldn’t believe he just said that, but I knew joking was his way of hiding how he really felt, so I just went along with it. “You’re one to talk,” I teased back. It was true. Louis had always stared at me when I came out of the pool or was changing clothes. He did it to annoy me, because he knew it made me feel self-conscious.

He smirked. “Nothing secret about my admiration, though, Hazza.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re crazy.”

 

**LOUIS POV**

After Harry had left, I felt very confused. He’d been a lot more cheerful than yesterday, which I was happy about, but it had still been a little awkward between us for obvious reasons. I was relieved that he felt better. I’d been afraid he’d stay sad and depressed for a while, seeing the state he was in before. Now, I felt a bit more positive that we’d get through this weird situation together. In a way, I really wanted my memories back. One, because it would make things a lot easier. And two, because I knew that what I’d had with Harry had been very special. After seeing both of our tattoos, it was clear to me we’d been in it for the long run. I didn’t just get tattoos with anyone. I didn’t just move in with anyone. Hell, I’d never even had a relationship that lasted longer than a few weeks. This was different. I’d felt _real_ love. But could I ever see Harry that way again? There was no doubt that he was very good-looking and he was my best friend for a reason… But did I have any romantic feelings for him? How had we just fallen in love like that after so many years of friendship?

My mum walked in, interrupting my thoughts. She’d brought me some tea, which made me smile. “Here you go,” she said. “Did you have a nice talk with Harry?”

I nodded, taking the cup from her hands. “Yeah, he seemed a lot better today. He told me about our tattoos and our apartment. Why didn’t you say anything about that? I assumed I still lived with you.”

“Oh, well… I thought Harry should be the one to tell you. You have a lot to figure out together.”

We definitely did. “I guess you’re right.”

She smiled, moving her hand on top of mine, giving it a soft, reassuring squeeze. “You two were so in love, Louis. I always figured you’d get together eventually.”

I frowned. “You did? But Harry wasn’t even out yet.”

She tilted her head and let out a short laugh. “I know, but I’m not blind. I always had a feeling he might be interested in you. And you never got any proper boyfriends, either. It seemed like you were waiting for someone special. And that someone was Harry, of course.”

Of course? Well, then. Had everyone already known that I was in love with Harry? Then how come I didn’t know it myself? Rachel had said she’d suspected Harry’s feelings for me, too, but I’d never noticed anything different in his behaviour towards me. Had I really been so blind all this time?

I took some time to let that sink in. My mum noticed my baffled expression and said, “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I know this must be confusing for you.”

I nodded. “It’s okay. But yeah, it’s a lot to take in all at once.”

She smiled sympathetically. “I understand. Take your time.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lily tells Louis a story about something that he can't remember in this chapter. I've written it as a flashback, from Harry's pov and then also a bit from Louis' pov. Obviously Lily can't read their minds, so this is not exactly how she tells it. So as a reader you get to know how it happened exactly, but Louis doesn't. I hope that's clear :)

**HARRY POV**

Lily and I walked into the hospital together, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers for Louis. He didn’t always want to admit it, but he absolutely loved getting flowers. He would always drop me little hints, so I’d buy them for him. I didn’t mind, of course. I loved making him happy and they really livened up our house, as well.

As he saw us come into his room, his eyes widened in surprise. “Whoa, are those for me?” he gasped.

“All yours!” Lily laughed. “Do you like them?”

His face brightened, making his eyes all crinkly and cute. “Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.”

“You’re an idiot,” she said, rolling her eyes. “How are you feeling? Sorry I couldn’t come by earlier.”

“That’s okay. You’re here now,” he said. “Yeah, I feel alright. Still achy, though.”

For some reason there was only one chair in the room, so after she'd put the flowers away into a pretty vase, Lily installed herself on the end of the bed, letting me take the chair.

“Good,” she said. “So… memory loss, huh? How weird is that?”

Louis glanced my way. “Yeah, has been quite… interesting.”

Lily chuckled. “Honestly, this could only happen to the two of you… it’s like a damn soap opera!”

“Tell me about it,” I commented, slowly shaking my head and letting out an exhausted breath.

“We’ll be fine,” Louis said, looking at the both of us. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, maybe you could tell me a little story, Lily. Something about Harry and me?”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, fun! Yeah, sure… Let’s see…”

 _Oh no._ “Please, not a too embarrassing one,” I interrupted. Too many things had happened that I didn't necessarily want Louis to know about. 

“Mmm,” she smiled mischievously and I just knew this was going to be bad. “How about that time you got drunk and kissed Lou?”

“Oh, god, please no!” I pleaded, hiding my face in my palms. “Can we just erase that from everyone’s memory, instead of bringing it back?”

Louis’ complexion brightened and he seemed to be enjoying this already. “Well, that actually sounds quite interesting, Lily. Please continue.”

 

**FLASHBACK - HARRY POV**

_“Look who’s a little jealous,” Lily said._

_I tore my eyes away from Louis and the guy who was currently sticking his tongue down Louis' throat. “What?”_

_“You’re looking at that guy like you’re planning on murdering him!”_

_I rolled my eyes in annoyance. “Don’t be ridiculous.”_

_Lily sighed. “Come on, just admit it. You don’t like that guy kissing_ your _guy.”_

_“Louis is not ‘my guy’, Lily. Just drop it, okay?”_

_“Fine, okay,” she said, holding up her hands in defence. “Just don’t be so obvious, then. I’m just trying to warn you. People might catch on.”_

_“I need a drink,” I said, leaving Lily alone at the table. I’d been so frustrated that I forgot to ask her if she wanted anything. I would just get her something, anyway._

_To be honest, I didn’t even care if people would catch on. Hell, I kind of_ wanted _Louis to realize what I felt for him, so he would stop flaunting his hook-ups in front of me. I shouldn’t have gone out with them tonight. I knew it would end this way. It always did and I couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. Louis deserved better. I knew I had no right to be jealous, because how was Louis supposed to know I was madly in love with him after all these years? But it still made me feel like crap to see him this way._

_It was all so confusing. I was twenty-two years old, for god’s sake. Why didn’t these feelings show up earlier? I had known Louis since we were teenagers, and I had never thought of him that way. Somehow, I had been feeling like this for months now and it was driving me absolutely crazy. I’d hoped the feelings would just go away eventually, but of course I knew they weren’t going to. Hell, they were getting worse by the minute._

_Seeing Louis with another guy felt like a punch in the stomach. I should be used to it by now, because he had never been one for long relationships. He liked to sleep around and I knew that. Right now, I just couldn’t take it any longer._

_***_

_“Hey! You okay?” Louis asked when he'd finally decided to leave his new lover alone and talk to me. He gave me a concerned look._

_I ignored the question and smiled up at him. “Louis! Hey, where’s your lover boy? Dump him already?” I laughed, even though it wasn’t all that funny. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I hoped I hadn’t sounded too jealous, but well, it was too late now._

_Louis frowned. “Um… Harry, are you drunk?”_

_“Of course not!” I said. I let out a hysterical laugh as if that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. “I only had a couple of drinks…”_

_I tried to stand up straight and look normal, but almost tripped over something behind me. Louis caught me just in time, grabbing my arms and attempting to hold me upright._ _“Alright, let’s take you somewhere you can sit, okay?” Louis said._

_“You know, Lou?” I began, slurring my words. “You look really hot… Like… so gorgeous…”_

_“Hey!” Lily interrupted, suddenly there. I hadn’t even seen her coming. “What’s up with him?”_

_“He’s wasted!” Louis exclaimed. “What the hell happened? Harry doesn’t just do things like this for no reason!”_

_Lily looked at me with pity, then back at Louis. “Well… he wasn’t having a very good day, maybe he just needed to take his mind off of things.”_

_Louis frowned, not understanding, but dropped it for the time being. He nodded towards something in the distance. “Just help me get him over there, alright?”_

_With Lily and Louis holding me up, I stumbled to a couch in the corner of the room. We all sat down and I smiled at Louis, moving closer to him and leaning in. "_ _Mmmm…” I mumbled as I tangled my hands into his hair and sniffed him. “You smell nice.”_

_“Umm…” Louis muttered, his eyes widening._

_Lily burst out laughing. “Whoa. Looks like Harry really likes you when he’s drunk, huh?”_

_I was only inches away from Louis’ face. With my hands still gripping onto his hair, I leaned all the way in and pressed my lips against his. I softly hummed, trying to open up his lips and deepen the kiss, but I felt him struggle against me as he tried to push me away. I eventually let go of his hair and he quickly broke away from me._

_“We should leave,” Louis said, his voice sounding a bit shaky. “Harry, where are your keys?”_

_“Umm… don’t really know…” I slurred._

_“God!” Louis exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “Where’s your bag, then?”_

_“It’s probably still at the table we sat at,’ Lily offered. “I’ll go look for it, okay? Wait here.”_

**_LOUIS POV_ **

_After Harry had passed out in the backseat, I started up the car. Lily was sat next to me in the passenger seat, looking at me with concern. "_ _Are you alright?” she asked._

_I drove out of the parking lot and went in the direction of Lily’s house, so I could drop her off first. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just don’t get it. Why would he drink like this? And how did I not notice that he was having a bad day?” I saw Lily’s hesitation, which I didn’t like one bit. “Look, you know I don’t like secrets,” I continued. “If there’s something wrong with Harry, please tell me.”_

_“No, no… nothing is wrong. He’s just been struggling with some stuff and he doesn’t know how to tell you about it. I’m not sure if I should…”_

_I took a glance in the rearview mirror and saw that Harry was sound asleep. I sighed. “It’s fine. You don’t have to. I’ll talk to him myself.”_

_Lily gave me a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine, Louis. Nothing is wrong, I promise.”_

_“Alright. Thanks for helping me with him.”_

_“Sure. Happy to help.”_

_“I think I’ll just let him sleep at my place. I want to talk to him as soon as possible.”_

_Lily laughed. “Well, I’m not sure he’ll be very talkative in the morning. He might have a bit of a hangover.”_

_I huffed. “Too bad.”_

_***_

_After waking Harry up and walking him to the couch, he had immediately passed out again. He was really far gone. I was surprised, but also relieved that he hadn’t puked yet. After I’d given Harry a blanket, I went back to my own room and got ready for bed._

_This night had been confusing, but the fact that Lily hadn’t wanted to tell me what was going on, made me think that maybe I already knew. Harry had kissed me tonight and had overall been acting quite strangely for a while now. Giving me looks and being a bit awkward about us touching sometimes. I hadn’t given it a second thought, but now… What if Harry really had feelings for me? He’d just broken things off with Rachel, too. What if he’d done that for me?_

_I almost didn’t dare to think about it any further. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But was that what I was doing? Did I_ want _Harry to have those feelings for me? As scary as it might be, the answer was yes. Harry was everything to me. My best friend. The guy I had known almost all my life. The guy who had been there for me through all the good times and all the bad. I loved him, even though I always knew I could never have him. If things were different now, if I was allowed to let those locked up feelings out, I knew I could love Harry in every way possible._

****

**HARRY POV**

Lily finished up the story and I’d added in some details along the way, for as far as I still remembered them. That night was a bit of a blurr for me. But I knew I couldn't talk Lily out of telling this story, so I figured I’d at least make it more clear for Louis.

“Aw, that’s adorable, Haz,” Louis said, shooting me a cheeky grin. “You got jealous.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t see how that’s _adorable_ , Lou.”

He cutely scrunched up his nose at me, ignoring my comment. “So, what happens next? In the morning? You can’t leave me with such a cliff hanger.”

My cheeks reddened. I definitely wasn’t going to tell _that_ story today. “I’m not sure if that’s appropriate to say in front of her,” I said, glancing at Lily.

She rolled her eyes, shooting me a look that said, _are you kidding me, right now?_ “Oh, shut up Harry. As if I don’t already know!” she exclaimed.

Louis laughed, raising his eyebrows at her. “Wow. You really do know everything, don’t you?”

Lily nodded, looking quite smug about it. “Oh yeah. I have my ways of getting information out of you two. Like I said, you are like my own personal soap opera. I don’t even need a tv anymore, honestly. It's quite useful."

“I’m not sure how I feel about you knowing more about my love life than myself, but alright,” Louis said. “Thanks for the update, though, that was enlightening.”

“Always here to help, Lou.”

I groaned. I was definitely going to have to have a talk with Lily about what stories she could and couldn’t tell...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry & Louis go home! :) Also some bittersweet cuddling...

**HARRY POV**

Three days later I got a call from Louis, asking if I could come pick him up from the hospital. I’d been over the moon excited to hear the news. He was coming home today. Obviously things wouldn’t be the same, but it would be great to have him near me, again. I’d grown very tired of this stupid hospital and I was sure Louis had, too.

“Ready to leave this place?” I asked, helping Louis pack his stuff. His body was still hurting, but he could stand and walk pretty well without any help.

“ _So_ ready,” he breathed out. “If I have to eat this nasty food one more day I’m going to kill myself.”

I laughed. “Let’s not do that. I’ll cook you a proper meal when we’re home.”

Louis glanced down, smiling and seeming a little flustered. His reactions to me saying things like that were so adorable, they made me want to cuddle him to death. Okay, maybe not _death –_ I'd been through enough heartache already _–_ but it was cute nonetheless. I’d cooked for him even when we were just friends, but I guessed now it had a different meaning to it.

Louis grabbed the rest of his things and we walked out towards the exit together. “My mum made me promise we’d come visit her before going home. I gave her a call this morning.”

I brightened, always happy to see Jay again. “Oh, yeah, sure. We'll drive there first, then.” I stopped in my tracks, thinking back to the crash. Would Louis even want to be in a car after what he’d experienced? “Um, are you okay with us taking the car? After the accident, I mean.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I think so. I don’t remember what happened anyway, so unless I get some kind of flashback, I should be fine.”

I nodded. I knew he’d been joking about that last part, but it still made me a little anxious. We walked up to our brand new car – our old one having been completely ruined from the crash – and I suddenly saw Liam standing a few feet away from us in the parking lot. What was he doing here? “Hey! Li!” I called out, waving at him.

He gave us both a surprised look, quickly approaching us. “Oh, hey! You’re leaving already? I was just coming to see you!”

I nodded, glancing at Louis. “Yeah, he was released today. Sorry, maybe I should’ve called.”

Louis awkwardly held out his hand in an attempt to greet Liam. “Hi, man. Liam, I suppose?”

Liam’s eyes widened at the outstretched arm before him, but eventually he accepted it, his expression softening. “Hi. Yeah, that’s right. Liam Payne.”

“I’m Louis. But you already knew that, of course.”

Liam smiled. “Yeah. Glad to have you back, mate. How are you feeling?”

“Good, considering the circumstances. I’m glad I can leave this place, though.”

“I can imagine! Will be nice to be home again, I bet. Well, I’m sorry for my bad timing… I guess I’ll head back home, then. Rachel and I wanted to get lunch together, so I wasn’t planning on staying very long, anyway.”

“Alright,” Louis said, nodding. “Thanks for coming. I feel really bad that I can’t remember you...”

Liam gave him a sad smile, putting a hand on Louis’ shoulder. “It’s all good. We’ll catch up sometime.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Louis smiled back.

We both hugged Liam goodbye and got into the car, driving to Jay’s place.

 

**LOUIS POV**

“Do you want some tea, love?” my mum asked Harry.

He nodded. “Yeah that’d be lovely, thanks.”

“Me too, please,” I said.

My mum nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Harry and I were both sat on the couch and I looked around the living room, trying to see if anything was different than before. It seemed mostly the same, but then I spotted a new photograph on one of the cupboards. “Is that us?” I asked, walking up to it.

I held the picture in my hand. Harry and I were on it. We were actually sitting on the couch in the picture, as well. We were wearing the ugliest Christmas jumpers I’d ever seen, but it made me smile anyway. Harry’s arm was slung around my shoulder and I had mine wrapped tightly around his waist. We were grinning widely at the camera, our cheeks pressed against each other.

Harry came up next to me and looked at the picture. “Yeah, that was only a few weeks ago. Your mum took that picture. It's a nice one.”

I could hear a bit of sadness in Harry’s voice. He probably hated that he had to explain all of that to me, and I kind of hated myself for it, too. He was right, Christmas was only a few weeks ago. I stared at the photograph, unable to tear my eyes away from it. We looked so happy and in love… Why couldn’t I remember this?

My mum came back from the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits. She saw us looking at the photo and her face immediately brightened. “Oh, that’s a great one, isn’t it, Lou?” she said. “You two were adorable that day.”

Harry chuckled, taking the cup of tea out of her hands, when she handed it to him. “Well, thanks, Jay. For the compliment and the tea.”

She grinned, giving me a cup as well. “You know I love you boys.”

I groaned. “Ok, mum. That’s enough compliments for today.”

We walked back to the couch and all sat down. I took a biscuit from the tray, needing something to do with my hands. I couldn’t shake the picture from my thoughts… How could it be possible to have such a blank space in your mind? How could a memory of something that happened such a short while ago be unreachable for me?

“Will you be going back to work, soon, Harry?” my mum asked.

He shook his head lightly. “I think I’ll take another week off, since Louis hasn’t fully recovered, yet. He’ll probably need some help.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. It will give you two some time to spend together, as well.”

I felt my mum’s hand move over mine and noticed her looking at me concernedly. “You okay, love?” she asked.

I nodded, trying to give her a convincing smile. “Yes, sorry. I was just um… thinking.”

“Do you need to rest?”

“No, no, I’m okay. I’ll get some sleep when we’re home.”

 

***

We had some talks with my mum, which had cheered me up a bit. I knew it was no use to dwell on my lost memories, so I tried to let the picture go and focus on the here and now. We were driving home now, to our apartment. That we rented together. I could hardly believe that this was really happening, but I was immensely excited for it. I was going to see my own home. The home I lived in with my _boyfriend._

Harry parked our car in front of the building. “Here we are,” he grinned, noticing how giddy I was.

I stared up at the building in bewilderment. “I can’t believe we live here! This is insane.”

He smiled. “It’s not as spectacular as you think, so calm down.”

“Well, come on. I want to see it!”

I quickly unfastened my seatbelt and got out of the car. We walked up to the front door, which Harry unlocked, letting us inside of the building. We had to go up four stairs before we arrived at our doorstep. He hadn’t been lying when he said it wasn’t a big house, but I didn’t care. This was our little place… I was already loving it.

All this talk about Harry and me being together, being in love… It had sparked a desire in me that I didn’t even realize I had. I wanted this life with him so badly, even if it might not ever be the same as it had been in the year that I couldn’t remember. I knew that 2015 must have been the happiest time of my life and I wanted it back... The random hook-ups had never brought me happiness. I’d been fooling myself, thinking I was okay with the life I had. I realized now that I’d always wished for something more, something meaningful.

Harry opened the door to our apartment and stepped inside. I followed after him and gasped as I took sight of our living room. It looked amazing, exactly how I’d envisioned it. A bit of both our personalities combined in the way it was styled. Nothing too expensive – we weren’t exactly rich – but it still had a modern feel to it. It already felt like I belonged here, however sappy and cliché that might sound.

“Do you like it?” Harry asked, nervously.

I stared at him, eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? This is incredible! It’s so…” I didn’t know what word to use. How could I describe it?

“Messy?” Harry suggested.

“No!” I laughed softly. “I mean, maybe a little bit. But it’s fine. It looks… lived in. Very cosy.”

I started walking up to the couch, but then I spotted something white and fluffy in the corner of my eye. I almost squealed like a little girl. “Oh my god, Harry! We have a cat?!”

I ran up to the animal, but tried to keep my excitement in check as much as I could, not wanting to scare it away.

Harry laughed behind me. “Yeah, we do have a cat.”

“Hi, love…” I said in a stupidly high voice that I always used when talking to animals. The cat didn’t try to claw or bite me, so I figured it liked me. I smiled. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Her name is Fluffy,” Harry said, smiling.

That name made me shoot a disapproving look at Harry. “We seriously called our cat Fluffy?” I asked incredulously. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You deserve something better, don’t you, kitty cat?”

Harry raised his hands up in defence. “Wasn’t my idea.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh sure. You’re going to say that about everything now, aren’t you? Tattoos? Not your idea. Stupid cat name? Not your idea. How should I know if you’re lying?”

He grinned. “Oh, but you know I’d never lie to you, Lou.”

I shot him a look, not buying it at all. I’d always wanted a cat, but my mum was allergic. So getting this lovely creature had probably been my idea, but that name? No, I couldn’t believe it. “Oh well, don’t worry little fluff ball. I will love you, even though you have a silly name.” The cat purred contently and I couldn’t be more happy myself. I owned a freaking cat. What a great surprise.

“Want to see the bedroom?” Harry asked, after watching me play with Fluffy for a while.

I shot him an amused look, wiggling my brows at him suggestively. “Sure, love.”

Harry rolled his eyes at that, but he couldn’t hide his blush from me. Oh, how I loved teasing him. He led me to our room and I saw that it consisted of a huge bed, a wardrobe, a television and a desk. The unfamiliar laptop on the desk immediately caught my attention. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it.

“Oh, your laptop,” Harry said. “But we kind of share it, really.”

“Whoa, when did I buy that? It looks really expensive.”

A nervous smile formed on Harry’s lips. “Actually, I got that for you for Christmas.”

“What?” I stared up at him in shock. “Harry, Christmas is for little things, not expensive-ass laptops!”

He chuckled softly, sitting down on the bed and randomly taking off his boots. “I wanted to surprise you." One of his brows arched up as he looked at me. "I think we’ve already had this discussion before…”

I tilted my head in curiosity. “We have?”

He nodded. “You said exactly the same thing when I got it for you. You didn’t make me return it, though, so I think you didn’t mind it too much, after all.”

I grinned. I definitely didn’t mind having a nice laptop, but he really shouldn’t be spending so much money on me. “I do appreciate it. Thanks, babe.”

Harry’s eyes widened at my words. “Why did you call me that?”

The petname had somehow slipped out of my mouth, as if I always called him that. Which I didn't. Or did I? I tried to casually shrug it off and said, “Um, don’t I call you that?”

“You used to…” he frowned. "Do you remember?"

"Um, it kind of came out of nowhere. As if my mouth somehow remembered calling you that, I guess..."

I saw a hopeful sparkle in his eyes, and immediately regretted saying what I had. I didn't remember anything concrete and I shouldn’t give him the hope that I’d ever get my memories back. I had a feeling it didn’t work like that in real life. On tv you’d always see the memories rushing back to the person all at once… consuming their mind. That just seemed too good to be true. But even though I didn’t want to give him false hope, I did want to be open with him about these things.

Harry looked happy about it, at least. “I don’t mind,” he said. “You can call me whatever you want, Lou.”

 

***

A short while later, we’d both lain down on the comfortable bed, snuggled against a bunch of pillows. I was a bit tired, but didn’t really feel like sleeping, yet, so we decided to watch some episodes of The Walking Dead together. Apparently I’d already seen all of them, but of course I couldn’t remember. Harry kept laughing at me when I’d react exactly the same way as I had the first time around. I guessed this amnesia thing hadn’t changed me all that much, if I was causing Harry to have déjà vu’s all the time. It was pretty funny, actually.

“This is the hugest bed I’ve ever seen, by the way,” I said, sinking away into the soft pillows. “You don’t even need to sleep on the couch, if you don’t want to.”

Harry’s cheeks flushed and he glanced at me, trying to figure out if I’d been serious or joking. I wasn't even sure of that myself. “Well, um…” he sputtered. “I’m kind of a cuddler… Can’t promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

That actually didn’t sound too bad to me, but obviously I couldn’t just admit that to him. Sleeping in the same bed as Harry had seemed awkward at first, but now I was kind of looking forward to his cuddles. I had no idea what was happening. “Alright. Well, you know… if you’re cold or anything, you can always come join me.” I said, only half-joking this time.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Harry grinned, still blushing furiously. “So, how do you like the rest of our home?” he asked, quickly changing the subject. “Not too disappointing?"

“No, I absolutely love it, honestly. We did a good job, Haz,” I smiled at him fondly, but when I realized what I was doing, I quickly glanced away.

I heard Harry’s soft sigh, and I knew I’d annoyed him by trying to hide my affection from him. I didn’t even know why I was doing it, but I couldn’t seem to let my guard down around him anymore. I wanted to be able to smile at him, say things to him without being afraid to give him the wrong idea, but the hopeful look he would give me when I did those things made my insides constrict. I felt guilty for not loving him the way he deserved.

An awkward silence followed and I knew I’d ruined everything.

 

**HARRY POV**

That night, I’d installed myself on the couch with a pillow and a couple of blankets. Fluffy was lying next to me, curled up in a ball and sound asleep. I hadn’t been sleeping well since the accident and I knew today wouldn’t be any different. Knowing that Louis was in the bedroom right now, that I could have been there with him, but I wasn’t… It felt terribly wrong. He’d joked about me coming to join him and I wished he’d actually meant it. I missed his arms around me, his chest against my back, his legs tangled into mine... I wanted him close to me. I needed it.

My eyes started watering and I quickly blinked the tears away in frustration. Sighing, I threw the blankets away from me and got up from the couch. Walking to the hallway, I put on my winter coat and boots on top of my pyjamas. I went downstairs and stepped outside, the cold air hitting my face at once. Leaning against the brick wall, I deeply inhaled, letting the fresh air fill up my lungs.

After a while of just standing there, I’d calmed down a bit and decided to call Lily. Maybe she could help me feel better. It was two in the morning, not the most ideal time to ring someone, but she was usually sleeping late. She’d probably be up.

After a few rings, she picked up the phone. “Harry?” she asked, her voice laced with concern. “What’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine,” I reassured her. “Just can’t sleep.”

“Oh, honey… You still can’t? But Louis is home now, right?”

“Yeah... he’s home,” I said, staring down at my feet. “But we’re not _together_.”

My voice started choking up and I hated myself for it. Why did I have to be such a drama queen? Louis had survived the crash, everything was well. I should be celebrating. He’d come home with me and wanted to make things work between us, which was more than I could’ve ever hoped for. Then why did everything still feel so wrong?

“I feel so weak, Lily. Louis is trying his best to cheer me up, but the ache in my chest just isn’t going away. I don’t know why I still feel so bad…”

“Harry, of course you’re not weak. It’s totally normal to feel sad! You lost your boyfriend!”

“But I didn’t really lose him,” I said quietly. “He’s still here.”

“Yes he is. And that’s amazing, but you _have_ lost something very important to you and you can’t ignore that, honey. You have to allow yourself to miss the Louis you remember. Cry about it, scream about it, whatever you feel like doing. But don’t push it away.”

I knew she was right, but I was afraid that Louis wouldn’t feel the same way. Would he understand that I missed him, even if he was right there with me? “I just want to be strong for him. I wish I could be…”

“Louis wouldn’t want you to pretend that you’re okay if you’re not. He’ll be there for you, I know it and you do, too. He’s your best friend, Harry. You don’t have to do this alone.”

I nodded slowly, even though she couldn’t see that. I repeated her words in my head, trying to make myself believe them. The cold wind was flowing through my thin pyjamas, but I didn’t mind the feeling. It distracted me a bit from the other thoughts that were going through my head.

I’d started crying again and decided to just let the tears flow, instead of trying to push them back. I was going to take Lily’s advice and let myself feel what I was feeling. Nobody could see me like this, anyway. The streets were completely deserted, everyone probably asleep, which wasn’t strange for a workday. Louis and I would have to start living our lives again, soon enough. Join the real world. I didn’t know when I’d be ready for that.

Lily let me be silent for a while, but stayed on the other end of the phone. I took a deep breath. “I just don’t see the spark in his eyes anymore, when he’s looking at me. Sometimes he smiles at me, but then a few seconds later he avoids my gaze again. I don’t know what to think. I’m so afraid his feelings for me are gone, Lily. That they’ll never come back.”

She let out a sigh. “Don’t do that to yourself, honey. He fell in love with you for a reason and he’ll do it again. You are the love of his life. Remember, he moved in with you, got those tattoos with you. He even got a freaking cat with you!”

I laughed through my tears at how she’d placed the cat as something of more importance than the tattoos. And maybe it was. Getting a pet together was kind of a domestic thing to do and it made me feel like we were a little family. “I know that.”

“Then don’t worry so much! Make him fall in love with you all over again.”

“You think he will?”

“Yes. That boy doesn’t want anyone else. Trust me.”

I smiled, grateful for this pep talk. She always knew the right things to say. “Thank you, Lily. And sorry for calling you so late.”

“That’s totally fine. I’m here if you need me.”

The front door flew open and I saw Louis step outside in his pyjamas. He hadn’t bothered to put any shoes on. “Everything alright?” he asked, frowning when he noticed my now tearstained face. He left the door ajar and stepped closer to me, his expression worried.

I nodded, quickly wiping at the wetness on my cheeks. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just talking to Lily.”

He glanced at the phone that was pressed to my ear. “Is she okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m sorry, you should go back to sleep.”

“Oh,” he said, still looking suspicious. Of course he could tell I wasn’t fine, but he didn’t ask any further. “Well, I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

I heard Lily’s soft chuckle on the other end of the line, probably having overheard our conversation. “See! He can’t sleep without you, either!”

“I’ve got to go, Lily,” I said, ignoring her comment. “Thanks again.”

“You know I’m right, Harry!”

“Goodnight to you, too.” I hung up on her and had to stop myself from grinning. Could Louis really not sleep without me? I looked up at him and saw that he was shivering from the cold, arms wrapped tightly around himself. “Let’s go back inside,” I said, putting a hand on the small of his back and leading him through the front door.

“What were you two talking about?” Louis asked, as we started walking up the stairs.

“Oh, nothing,” I lied. I knew Lily had just told me to be more open about my feelings, but this just didn’t feel like an appropriate time. I didn’t want him to feel pressured into doing things he didn’t want to do, just to make me feel better. Reaching our apartment door, we opened it up and stepped back into our home. I took off my boots and hung my coat back on the hanger.

“Haz?”

I looked up. “Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?” He seemed a bit uncomfortable, not looking at me and fidgeting with his fingers. It made me wonder what he was about to say.

“Yeah, anything.”

“Do you maybe want to… Um, not sleep on the couch?”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“I mean, you don’t have to if you’re not comfortable. But it just feels a bit… Empty. You know?”

Yes. I knew exactly what he meant. “Are you sure? I–” I trailed off, starting to get hesitant about the idea. Did he really want this or was he just asking it, because he thought that was what I wanted? Because he knew I couldn’t sleep without him next to me?

Louis quickly nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. We can even cuddle,” he blurted out. “If you want to, I mean…” His cheeks flushed red, which was kind of cute. He seemed really embarrassed about his request, but I also saw a glimpse of hope in his eyes. That’s when I knew he wasn’t just asking this because I’d been crying and he felt bad for me. He really wanted me to say yes.

“Okay,” I said, softly. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

His mouth curled up into a wide grin and he tried to hide it once again by moving his hand in front of it. My heart sank and I realised we still had a long way to go. I wished he wouldn’t be afraid to show his feelings to me, but I knew I needed to give him some time. I wasn’t being completely honest with him, either and I shouldn’t be a hypocrite.

We started walking towards the bedroom together and crawled under the sheets on our respective sides of the bed. I wondered if Louis automatically knew what his side was, or if something else had given it away. We snuggled into the bed and Louis immediately moved to my side, holding me close to him like he always had. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth as I melted into his warm body, needing to be as close as possible. Being in Louis’ arms was calming in a way that nobody else could make me feel. I felt reassured and instantly safe in his embrace and I could pretend that everything was back to normal… even if it was just for a little while.

“This good?” He murmured into my ear, sending shivers up my spine.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Perfect.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kissing happens! Also a bit more crying, but oh well. :p

**LOUIS POV**

Cuddling with Harry was my new favourite thing. It felt nice to be so close to someone, to feel their warmth and hear their soft breathing as they slowly fell asleep... Harry'd been crying yesterday night and I could guess what the reason had been. He missed me. The version of me that didn't have amnesia, but still. I wanted to be that guy for him again, even if I'd never get my memories back. I wanted him to be able to love me the way I was right now.

When I'd seen Harry's heartbroken expression I realised it was ridiculous that we were sleeping apart. It hurt me to see him so sad and I wanted to comfort him, but that was only part of the reason why I'd asked him to come sleep in our bed with me. For me, it had felt empty without him as well. I’d kept reaching out, as if I knew something was missing, like Harry was supposed to be there. When I’d finally been able to hold him in my arms, that feeling had dissolved immediately and I knew that what we were doing was absolutely right.

When I woke up I felt Harry’s curls tickling my face and it somehow gave me a sense of familiarity. His hair smelled delicious, like fresh shampoo and I instantly felt attracted to the scent. It made me inhale deeply and bury my face into his locks, but as I realized what I was doing I quickly stilled, hoping that Harry wasn't awake yet and hadn't noticed me doing that. Smelling someone’s hair seemed like a bit of a weird thing to do… but for some reason that particular shampoo reminded me of something happy.

I glanced over at my nightstand and noticed my phone lying on it. I hadn’t had a chance to look through it yet, but right now seemed as much of a good time as any to fix that. I grabbed it from the table and quickly entered my pin, but then frowned as it got rejected. Great. I’d changed my code. I couldn't get into my phone.

I turned around and checked to see if Harry was awake, gently shaking him. “Hazza?”

He grumbled disapprovingly, clearly not wanting to wake up just yet. “Mmm?” he questioned, slowly opening his eyes.

“Morning, sleepy,” I said, and smiled because of his adorable appearance this morning. I pointed at my mobile and let out a nervous laugh. “Umm. I’ve got a bit of a problem. My phone isn’t unlocking. Do you happen to know the code?”

I felt a bit ridiculous for not remembering such a personal thing, but obviously I couldn’t really help it. I was very curious to look through my phone, because it would have a bunch of pictures and of course all of my personal messages on it. Basically, it was a gold mine for me that could help me learn a lot more about my lost memories. I really needed to get in, so I prayed to god that Harry and I shared things like passwords and pin codes with each other.

He sat up next to me, looking quite surprised about my question. He first glanced at the lockscreen of my phone and then back at me. “It’s not your usual one?” he asked.

I shook my head. I wasn’t very happy with that answer, because it meant he didn’t even know that I’d changed it. And if Harry didn’t know, I’d have to take it to a repair shop or something like that.

“Hmm,” Harry continued thoughtfully. “You haven’t told me, but try 3003?”

That seemed kind of random to me, but I typed in the numbers anyway and crossed my fingers, hoping they’d be correct. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. “Nope… Any other ideas?”

“How about 0505?”

I frowned up at him curiously, because he seemed really sure about the codes he was giving me, but they didn't mean anything to me. “How are you even coming up with these numbers?”

He shrugged and nodded at the phone in my hands. “Go on. Just try it.”

I did as he said and surprisingly it actually worked this time and my phone was unlocked. I gave him a triumphant grin. “Whoa, that’s it! How did you know?”

He grinned back at me. “You’re predictable. And really cute.”

I wasn’t sure what had earned me that compliment and raised an eyebrow at him suspiciously. “What, is it an anniversary date or something cheesy like that?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not cheesy! It's very romantic, Lou…”

I rolled my eyes at him, wanting to know what exactly he was talking about. “Hazza…” I said in a warning tone. “Tell me what it means!”

He started cutely nibbling on one of his fingers, looking up at me and smiling like a little kid, but still didn't tell me anything about the numbers. What date could be so important to me that I’d put it as my phone pin and what was so sweet that it made Harry look at me like I was the most precious thing on earth? “Come on, Harry? Please?”

“Guess.”

I let out an exaggerated sigh. “You’re so annoying. Alright, so a date? Our first time?”

His face scrunched up in a laugh. “No! That happened a lot earlier. And who would put that as their phone lock, anyway?”

“I don’t know! We’re crazy enough, aren’t we?” Alright. May fifth. What else could it be? “Um, when we moved in together?”

He shook his head. “Nah. That was in August. Would’ve been sweet, though. If this hadn’t been right, you should’ve tried that one.”

“I have no idea, Hazza! Just tell me.”

“But you’ve only guessed twice!”

I gave him a look, letting him know that I was definitely done guessing. Then, he finally gave in. “Okay, okay. But don’t laugh,” he warned. “We said ‘I love you’ for the first time.”

“In May?!” I exclaimed and I was honestly surprised that it had taken us so long to say the words. I’d heard enough stories from Lily and Rachel to know that we’d been head over heels from the beginning. “Didn’t we get together in April?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You should’ve said, ‘Oh, you’re right, Harry, that’s so sweet!’”

“I mean, yeah. It is really sweet. But it really took us that long to say it? You totally already loved me in April! Don’t even _try_ to deny it.”

Harry’s mouth fell open with surprise, but then he laughed. “Can’t believe you just said that. But you’re right, yeah. I waited for you to say it first.”

“That’s mean.”

“Nah. I thought it was pretty clever of me, honestly.” Harry just grinned and then crawled out of the bed, showing off his silly pyjamas. I hadn’t even noticed that there were unicorns on them until now. “Come on,” he said. “We should go and make some breakfast.” When a few minutes ago Harry had seemed reluctant to wake up, now he was shining brightly, ready for the day to start.

“Hey, wait!” I called after him, before he could walk out of the bedroom. “You should tell me more about our anniversaries. Obviously I don’t have our timeline straight.”

“I’ll tell you everything you’d like to know during breakfast,” he promised and then gestured towards my phone. “And we can also look through your phone.”

I smiled and got out of bed as well, joining him in his way to the kitchen. “Good. So, what are we making today?”

“Eggs and toast?” Harry suggested.

I nodded appreciatively and then saw a wild cat appear at my feet. She started rubbing her soft fur against my legs as she let out a desperate meow. “Oh, hi there, darling," I cooed. "You want some food, too, don’t you?”

Fluffy meowed again and I took that as a confirmation. Harry nodded towards one of the cupboards to my right. “Cat food’s in the last one.”

I quickly gave her some food and waited as Harry finished preparing our breakfast. We sat down together on the couch as he turned on the tv and put it on a news channel. It was more background noise for me than anything else, but Harry seemed to be interested. Taking a few bites from my meal, I unlocked my phone again and clicked my messages first, quickly scrolling through my conversations. I recognized all the names, which was a big relief. I didn't need another Liam situation. For the most part, my recent messages were Happy New Year’s wishes and people who'd heard about my accident, asking how I was doing.

I curiously clicked my conversation with Harry, wondering what kind of things we talked about when we weren’t at home together. I scrolled pretty far back, which had been a big mistake as I came across some quite interesting pictures along the way. One of them made me almost choke on my breakfast and I quickly threw the phone away next to me on the couch.

“Whoa!” Harry called out. He set his plate down on the table and started patting me on the back. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered as I continued to cough. My cheeks heated up. “I just didn’t expect to see your _nudes_ on my phone!”

Harry's eyes widened and he put his hand in front of his mouth, but I immediately knew he did that more to hide his laugh than from shock. “Oh, yeah,” he said dryly. “Forgot about that.”

“This is not funny!”

“I mean…” he began, letting out a laugh. “You’ve seen all that before, Lou.”

“Not yours!” I shook my head. Alright, obviously I had seen his junk before, but _I_ couldn’t remember that. I was so not having this conversation with Harry, right now. “Alright, I’m done,” I took our plates and went to hide in the kitchen, feeling horribly embarrassed. Imagining how much more Harry must know about our sex life that I was completely in the dark about only made it worse.

“Louis!” Harry called from the living room. “How about you look through my phone? I promise there are no nudes!”

“Are you sure?” I asked, not quite believing him.

“Positive. I’ll leave it on the table for you. I’m just going to change clothes and get some groceries, alright?” he chuckled. “Then you can calm down from the shock a bit.”

I snorted and muttered under my breath, “Sure, Harry. Thanks a lot.”

 

***

After Harry’d gone out I’d gotten a call from my study advisor from uni to ask how I was doing. They’d discussed my situation and had decided that I should do all my classes over again, seeing as I couldn’t remember taking any of them or doing the exams. It seemed like the most logical decision. For me, it just felt like continuing where I’d left off, so it didn’t change all that much.

I sat down at the kitchen table with the two phones in front of me, contemplating which one I should look at first. I decided to go for Harry’s, because I still hadn’t fully recovered from that nude. Our dirty text messaging would have to be reading material for some other time… Right now, I’d like to see some more innocent, friendly pictures. I flicked my thumbs over the touchscreen and slowly scrolled through the gallery. What I saw were mainly pictures of food, our cat and lots of selfies of Harry, me and our friends. That made me smile. The Christmas picture at my mum’s house had made me want to see more photos and even though I was still sceptical about it, I wished they would bring back some memories.

I stared at the photos, trying my hardest to remember _anything_. I looked happy in all of them, that was a sure thing, but other than that my mind came up completely blank. Sighing, I clicked the video tab, not really expecting to see anything interesting, but one of the videos immediately caught my attention. It was called ‘surprising Lou’ and it was barely a minute long. I pressed play and Harry appeared onto the screen. The room that he was in was pretty dark, but eventually I recognised the setting as our bedroom. He was lying in bed, most likely not wearing any clothes. Apparently I just couldn’t escape the nudity when it came to this guy.

_“Louis loved my surprise! Didn’t you, love?” Harry said to the camera. He moved his phone to show both of our faces in the shot. I was facing him, looking at him contently, but my expression also seemed a little confused as to what he was doing._

_“Yeah, it was very sweet of you,” I murmured and softly caressed his cheek with the back of my finger. “Why are you filming this, babe?”_

_Harry grinned and said, “So that I’ll have proof if you ever say I never do anything romantic for you.”_

_I shot him an unimpressed look. “Are you serious?”_

_“Nah,” he said, smiling innocently. “I know you don’t really think that. Isn’t it nice to have this moment on video, though? Don’t you wish we were like those YouTube vloggers sometimes, Lou?”_

_That statement had made me groan loudly._

I laughed. Harry did follow a lot of ‘vloggers’ on YouTube, it was pretty damn ridiculous. They basically took a camera with them everywhere they went and uploaded that nonsense to the internet for the world to see. Harry was absolutely addicted to watching the videos and cute couples definitely were his favourite. Of course he’d want us to join those idiots…

_“No thanks, Harold,” I said, and I knew I’d used that name just to annoy him. “Please tell me you’re not posting this on the internet.”_

_Harry pouted, but I kept staring at him, waiting until he’d promise not to post it._

_“Okay, fine,” he said, rolling his eyes at me. “We’ll never be famous YouTube stars then!”_

_“You’re nuts,” I told him, but the smile on my face was unmistakable. “Now shut that thing off. We've got other things to do...”_

_My hand moved towards the phone and that’s when the video cut off._

I smiled at the screen, feeling a bit stunned. That must’ve been the strangest experience I’d had ever since waking up from my coma. Seeing it all play out before me like that somehow made everything feel more real. Harry and I really had been together and I had lost a year full of little moments like the one in this video… Of course I’d known that all along and people had been telling me all kinds of stories about things I couldn’t remember. But even though I knew they were talking about me, it didn’t truly sink in. In this video on the other hand, it was undeniably me. Me and Harry. This had happened and there was actual proof of it. I could see it and hear it with my own senses.

I looked back at the phone, hoping there would be more of these videos. A feeling of disappointment swept over me when I couldn’t find any others, not on my own phone either. I felt a sudden craving for them and I almost wished we _had_ been YouTube vloggers, because then I wouldn’t need a miracle to get my memories back. I could just watch all the videos and I’d know everything within just a few hours.

 

***

“Please tell me you have a secret YouTube account with a million vlogs of us on it.” I said, when Harry came through the front door, carrying two full bags of groceries in his hands.

He looked at me incredulously. “What did you just say?”

I walked over to him, taking the two bags from him – even though he was way stronger than I was and probably didn’t need any help – and put them on the kitchen counter. “I looked through your phone and saw this video of us. It’s called ‘surprising Lou’,” I explained, handing him his phone.

Harry stared at the screen, his eyes widening in recognition. “Oh god. Did you watch that? I forgot that even existed.”

I didn’t try to hide my disappointment. “I guess that means you didn’t make any other videos?”

“I did, actually, but you made me delete them.”

I groaned. Of course I did. “And did you? Delete them?”

“Yes! I’m a good boyfriend, Louis. If you ask me to do something that is important to you, I will listen.”

I frowned. “Really? You didn’t keep them hidden on the computer somewhere?”

He slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lou. I really don’t have them anymore. But they were stupid anyway, you didn’t miss anything. Promise.”

I sighed. “Alright. I don’t even know why I want to see them so badly, honestly. That video just gave me a sense of… reality, I guess. It really hit me that a year is a _long_ time and that I’ve really lost a lot of great moments with you.”

A sad smile formed on his lips as he put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll have more great moments in the future.”

I nodded, but didn’t really feel like getting all deep and emotional right now, so I tried to change the subject. “So what was the surprise?” I asked. Harry’s confused expression made me elaborate. “In the video. You were talking about a surprise for me…”

“Oh! Right.” A wide grin appeared on his face as he thought back to the moment. “I cooked a special, romantic dinner for you. Including dessert. I remember spending hours and hours in the kitchen, but thankfully you didn’t suspect anything. When you came home from uni you were very surprised.”

A romantic dinner. That was so simple and yet it was a lovely gesture. He must cook for me all the time, but it seemed like this time it had been quite a time-consuming thing to make. He definitely put a lot of effort in it, going by the way he was talking about it and it made me feel incredibly happy, knowing that we’d been such a good couple. We were awesome as best friends, of course, but the romance part had seemed to strengthen our bond even more.

Harry started unpacking the groceries, so I helped him put everything in the right spot as he gave me some directions as to where everything was supposed to go. “A dinner, huh?” I said. “That’s really sweet, Haz. What was the occasion?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, I just wanted to do something nice for you. Show you how much you mean to me. Didn’t I say something about that in the video?”

“Right, yeah you did. I asked you why you were filming us and you said that you’d use the video as proof that you were romantic, or something. What was that about, did I complain about you not being nice to me or something?”

Harry chuckled. “No, not quite. We had a talk once, about how dumb valentine’s day is. You said people should do nice things for their partner every day, so I took that as a hint. I do agree with you on that, though. If you’re in a relationship there should never be a point where you stop doing nice things for each other, no matter how long you’ve been together.”

I smiled at that. “Did I really say that? I was a huge sap when I was with you, wasn’t I?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You’ve always been a huge sap, Lou. You’re just in denial.”

I laughed, but I knew that he was right. “Yeah. Relationships would be boring if people just stopped trying to impress their partner at some point. Even if you know they already love you, you should still do nice things for them, go on dates even. Just have fun together, otherwise you’ll just get stuck in a rut.”

Harry stared at me. “I think I just had a déjà vu again. But well, I’m glad your thoughts are still the same on that.” He smiled and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek, making a blush creep up my neck. “And I wholeheartedly agree with you, so why don’t you finish unpacking all of this stuff for me while I go take a nice, warm shower?”

I was about to protest, but Harry was already walking away from me, towards the bathroom. I shook my head in disbelief. Goof.

 

***

When I enveloped my arms around Harry from behind, my body seemed to know exactly how we fit together. I didn’t know what had prompted me to do this, but I’d felt a sudden urge to be close to Harry, to feel connected to him in a more-than-friendly way, kind of like we had been in the video. Our dynamic had been the same, and yet still different. I could see myself having that conversation with Harry now, but I’d called him _babe_ and the way I’d looked at him had almost seemed like adoration. Maybe sneaking up on Harry in the shower hadn’t been the best idea, but it was too late for a change of plans now.

Harry froze under my touch, the warm water streaming over our intertwined bodies. “What are you doing?” he asked, sounding startled.

“I want you,” I whispered, softly pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

Harry tried to turn around to face me, so I loosened my grip on him. Having turned around, I could now clearly see his expression and he didn’t seem pleased with me at all. “Why?” he asked. I frowned, not sure what he meant with that question, but he didn’t even wait for my answer. “I’m sorry, Louis. I can’t do this.” He moved away from me to get out of the shower, but I grabbed his wrist just before he could open the bathroom door.

“Wait! What’s the problem?”

He pursed his lips together, turning around to face me. “The fact that you have to ask me that, tells me enough.”

“Explain it to me then!” I said, desperately.

He sighed, trying to find his calm. “Fine... I want love, Louis. I want real, unconditional love. Someone who wants to spend the rest of their life with me. Someone to be happy with.” He waved his arms at me in frustration. “I don’t know what you were trying to achieve with this, but it’s clearly not that!”

I stared at him, a sick feeling settling in my stomach. Did he really think so low of me? Did he really believe that I just wanted to have sex with him, no strings attached, when I knew how he felt about me? “That’s not true, Harry. You know it isn’t! I’ve always wanted that and I want it with you. It’s just–” I trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence without potentially pissing him off even more. Nothing seemed good enough at this moment.

“It’s just what?” he insisted.

I tried to gather my thoughts. “You’re going too fast,” I decided. Harry wanted me to love him, wanted to go back to how we were before the accident, but I couldn’t give him that. Not yet, anyway. I knew this sounded incredibly hypocritical coming from me, as I'd been the one to come into his shower uninvitedly, so I tried to explain as best as I could.

“I want all of those things with you, believe me,” I continued. “I’m just not ready to open up to you completely. You have all of these loving memories of us together, being sweet to each other, being boyfriends. I don’t have any of those memories… Everything you’ve told me about us sounds amazing, but it almost feels like you’re talking about some other couple. It doesn’t feel like it’s about you and me, because I haven’t experienced those things with you. What I’m trying to say is… I need us to make new memories together. To look at the future, not at the past.”

At first I couldn’t read his expression, but then I saw it soften which made my body fill with a sense of relief. “Come,” he said, as he closed the short distance between us and grabbed my hand to lead us back under the stream of warm water. “I’m sorry, I felt a little weird standing there like… that.”

I smiled nervously, grateful that he’d released us from that awkward position. I was glad he understood where I was coming from, even though he might not be happy with the situation.

“Sorry for yelling at you,” Harry said, while absentmindedly tracing a finger down my arm. “I agree. We should make new memories together. I need to accept that we can’t go back to how we used to be.”

I felt a pang of guilt at hearing the sadness in his voice and the thought crossed my mind that maybe I was asking too much of him. Of course he wanted to go back to how we were before. Maybe he would always prefer that version of me. “It’s okay. I get that you want that.”

“But it’s not fair to you. I’ve been selfish and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I assured him.

Wanting to break the obvious tension between us, I inched closer and pressed my lips to his. Harry’s mouth curled up as he leaned into me, his arms snaking around my waist. Mine seemed to automatically curl around his neck, leaving no space between us. A low moan escaped his mouth as our bodies came fully into contact. Our tongues moved together hungrily as if we’d been waiting for this to happen for decades. I couldn’t remember ever being kissed like this, so full of passion and desire. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, but it was truly intoxicating.

Harry broke the kiss breathlessly. He looked at me, the love in his expression making my insides weak. “I can think of a few ways we could make new memories right now,” he whispered heatedly.

I chuckled softly. “That wasn’t really what I meant.”

He grinned. “I know. But I think you had different ideas when you initially decided to join me in here.”

I raised my eyebrows, grinning back at him. “Maybe,” I said, but truthfully I hadn’t been out for sex. I wanted something else, something more innocent. The guys I would go out with only wanted one thing and most of the time we’d skip the foreplay altogether. There had never been someone who just wanted to touch or feel around. There were no sweet moments, no romance and that was all I was craving. I wanted to feel every inch of Harry’s skin under my hands and explore his body like he deserved.

“Can I wash you?” I asked, biting my lip nervously.

Harry frowned, but smiled simultaneously at my request. I guessed he didn’t expect that, but also didn't seem against the idea. “Um, yeah sure. Do you want me to do you too?”

I nodded breathlessly. That would be perfect.

Leaning down, I grabbed a bottle of shower gel and rubbed it into my hands to lather it up. Starting at his shoulders, I began rubbing the foam onto his skin in soft circular motions. Harry took the flask from me and started doing the same to my body. I could easily get addicted to the feeling of his strong hands on me. I noticed that he was being very careful with me, possibly because I was still sore from the crash. It always amazed me how thoughtful he was. I worked my way down his torso, hesitating if I should avoid touching his nipples or not. I just wanted to be able to touch him without things becoming too sexual.

“What are you thinking?” Harry asked, noticing my hesitation.

I blushed, not wanting to repeat my thoughts out loud. It annoyed me how nervous I was around Harry these days. I wasn’t used to feeling like this, but then again, I had never really cared about any of the guys I was with. And I did care about Harry, more than I wanted to admit. “Are you okay with taking things slow?” I asked, softly stroking along his abs.

Harry nodded. “Of course. We don’t have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.”

“Good.”

“I’m already glad that you’re giving me a chance.”

I laughed. I was giving _him_ a chance? “Well, you’re pretty hot, so…”

He rolled his eyes and gave me a playful shove. “Idiot. Turn around.” I did as he said and felt him distribute more foam onto my back. “So, what would you like to do after this? We still have some time today.”

I thought about that. A lot of the lovey-dovey pictures that I’d seen of us together had been taken on the beach. We’d always liked going there, even as friends, but the weather wasn’t always nice to us. Harry loved swimming and I loved lying around in the sun. It was the perfect combination, really. Obviously, as it was winter now, we couldn’t recreate that particular setting, but thinking about it, that also wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to recreate anything. We needed something original, something new for the both of us and that was going to be hard to come up with.

“Is there anything we haven’t done before?” I asked. “Something fun we could do?”

Harry thought about that, while squirting some shampoo onto his hands. Apparently he was moving on to washing my hair now. That hadn’t been the plan, but I’d roll with it. Who didn’t like a nice head massage?

“I’m not sure,” he said. “We’ve done most coupley things, I guess. Why not just do those again? We could have do-overs for everything.”

That seemed nice, but I wasn’t sure about that plan. I turned around to face him again. “I don’t know,” I said, hesitatingly. “I just want a fresh start, you know? I want you to remember this version of me and not confuse me with the old me.”

He looked at me with a pained expression. “Trust me, love... I’m painfully aware of the difference between old you and new you. I know exactly which memories are gone now and they’re quite important to me. You can’t ask me to forget about them.”

I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me by saying that, but it still stung. Sometimes it felt like all of this was my fault, even if everyone told me it wasn’t. I felt like I’d robbed him of his happiness somehow. Why couldn’t I just have my stupid memories back? “Are you sure you can do this? With me?” I whispered.

He put both of his hands on my cheeks, moving my gaze directly to his eyes. “Yes,” he told me. “We’ll make this work, Lou. I love you. The old you, the new you. I’ll love you either way and you’re still the same person. That will never change.”

I started tearing up, which hopefully he didn’t notice because my face was already wet. I’d joked about it, but my heart tugged every time he said those three words to me. _I love you._ I didn’t think anyone ever would, other than my family members. It seemed crazy that this was my life now. How had my best friend fallen in love with me? And how had I not fallen for him any sooner?

“Don’t cry, love,” Harry whispered, wiping at my cheeks.

I realized too late that more tears had started falling. I tried to smile, feeling embarrassed. The past weeks, we’d both probably cried more often than ever. I started to understand why Lily called our life a soap opera… “Sorry,” I sighed. “Thank you, Harry. You are amazing. Sometimes I just can’t believe this is real.”

He smiled and pressed a soft kiss onto my lips. “It’s real. And we’ll make it work.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same day as the previous chapter. More kisses and cuddles.  
> Sorry for the chicken stuffed with mozzarella. I know that's a huge cliché, but I just couldn't resist, lmao.

**HARRY POV**

At first I’d felt angry at Louis for coming onto me in the shower like that. I hadn't expected it at all and my first thought had been that he was out for shallow sex, making a mockery of my love for him. Of course I’d been stupid to think that. Louis would never do that to me and honestly, right now I was pretty glad he’d done it. It had broken so many barriers between us, walls that had prevented us from moving forward and that was a very good thing for us. We’d kissed, touched and shared what we were _really_ feeling, all things I’d been wanting to do, but was too scared to. I knew how Louis felt about me now and for the first time since the accident, I felt a bit more certain that things would be okay between us again.

I’d told him I loved him and he hadn’t said it back, but I hadn’t expected him to. I knew his feelings wouldn’t just come back in a few days. I wanted him to say the words when he was ready, when he really meant it. He wanted to be with me and that was all I needed to hear. My words had made him emotional and that alone was enough to reassure me that he was taking our relationship seriously. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t really believe that I loved him, so I was going to make sure that he knew how much he meant to me.

Louis was sleeping now, he’d been exhausted and I didn’t blame him. It took a lot of willpower from me not to just climb into bed with him, but I really needed to make us some dinner and clean up our mess of a house. I started by sorting out the living room and doing the dishes. Using the vacuum cleaner might wake Louis up, so I decided to do some laundry instead and then folded some of our clothes. After most of the mess was gone and our living room was presentable again, I slumped down onto the couch, feeling completely worn out. Right at that moment, Louis walked out of the bedroom, sleepily rubbing his eyes. “Hey,” he said, looking around the room. “Did you clean?”

I nodded, feeling happy that he’d noticed. I hoisted my legs up onto the couch and lay down flat, allowing my muscles to relax. “Mhm,” I murmured.

“Wow,” he replied, as he stepped closer to me. “I’m impressed.”

I yawned and my eyes slowly fluttered closed. “Thanks. You hungry?” I asked lazily.

He chuckled. “Yeah, but you don’t seem like you’re up for cooking at the moment, Hazza.”

My mouth slowly curled up, but I kept my eyes shut. “You’re right.”

“So?" he questioned. "Do you want me to do it?”

He sounded quite serious about his offer, but it made me laugh anyway. Louis was a horrible cook, so I opened one eye to inspect his expression and see if he was joking. It didn’t look like he was being sarcastic, though. “That’s not necessary…” I said hesitantly. “But you could try?”

He huffed, seeming offended. “Try? You think I can’t cook?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry, Lou. But I’ve known you for almost ten years and the only thing I’ve ever seen you make are scrambled eggs. I _know_ you can’t cook.”

“Oh really, now? Alright, challenge accepted. I’ll prove you wrong.”

“Honey…” I blurted out and I hoped he didn’t mind me calling him that. “Can’t you do that some other time? Let’s just order a pizza, or something. I’m really hungry.”

He shook his head at me, still not letting it go. “Are you honestly saying I’ve never once cooked for you before?”

Louis seemed to be more disappointed in himself than wanting to prove a point, now. “I really don’t mind, Lou. You’re busy with school and... you know I like cooking.”

He frowned at me. “Well, you should mind! You’re busy with your work, too, so that’s not really an excuse, is it? We should share the housework, like normal couples do.”

I actually let out a gasp. Did those words really just come out of his mouth? “Um, what?”

“I mean it,” he continued determinedly. “It seems only fair. Wait here. I’m going to cook us dinner right now and you’ll see… It’ll be delicious.”

Before I could say anything else, Louis had already disappeared into the kitchen. I had no idea what was happening, but I wasn’t complaining. I was a tiny bit worried that whatever he was making us would taste like utter crap, but I should probably give him a chance since he was so excited about this. I grinned as I heard a loud clanging noise coming from the other room. “Try not to destroy my kitchen!” I yelled.

“It’s all good, promise!” he yelled back.

I closed my eyes again and decided to trust him and let him do his thing.

 

**LOUIS POV**

“Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s finished,” I whispered into Harry’s ear, carefully shaking him awake.

He looked up at me with an adorably confused expression, but then seemed to remember what I’d promised to do and it quickly changed to one of worry. “Oh. How did it go?”

I made a face at him. “You really have no faith in me, do you?”

He smiled up at me sweetly, grabbing my face into his hands and pressing a kiss to my lips. I was a little taken aback by his forwardness, but that feeling quickly vanished and I decided that I definitely didn't mind Harry's spontaneous kisses. “I do, I do," he assured me. "I’m sure it’s delicious.”

I quickly rose up from my leaning position, before Harry could see my blush. "Well, come on, then. Don’t talk before you’ve tasted it.”

I was nervous, but it seemed like the meal had turned out alright. I found a recipe in one of Harry’s cookbooks that was lying around somewhere and it actually seemed doable. I’d made us chicken, stuffed with mozzarella, wrapped in parma ham and I’d even managed to make a side of mashed potatoes to go with it. It had been easier than expected. Harry was right, of course, I wasn’t exactly a chef, but I wanted to do something nice for him. It seemed like I’d been a lazy ass when I was with him, making Harry do all the work and that definitely had to change.

Harry moved up from the couch and walked towards the dinner table. I laughed at his sleep-tousled hair. He frowned at me. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. You just look a bit ridiculous with your hair like that.”

His mouth fell open, mocking a shocked expression. “Gee, thanks. You’re such a romantic.” But when he noticed how I’d set the table with lit candles and a nice tablecloth, his surprise was very real. “Oh, Lou!” he said, dragging out my name and shooting me a loving look. “You really didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I wanted to,” I told him sincerely. “Do you like it?”

He walked up to me and gave me another kiss. I held him close to me and let his lips linger onto mine for a little while longer, not wanting him to let go of me.

“I love it, Louis. Thank you.”

I smiled the brightest of smiles, not able to help myself, but I didn’t try to hide it from Harry anymore. After everything that happened in the last few days, I was sure that I wanted to go for us a hundred per cent. Harry made me happy and he was allowed to know that. And if things like this always got such a response out of him, I should definitely do it more often.

We sat down and I poured some wine into our glasses. This dinner was way too fancy for me, but I didn’t care. Harry deserved fancy and much, much more than that.

“It smells amazing,” Harry commented, sniffing around in the air.

"Let's hope it tastes like that, too." Smiling, I cut a piece of chicken for Harry, wanting him to be the first to taste it. Picking up the piece with my fork, I held it out in front of his mouth. “Open up.”

He giggled, but then did as I said. I fed it to him and as he started chewing, a blissful expression formed on his face. “Oh my god, Louis. This is heavenly.”

I shot him a smug grin. “Hmm, you sound surprised?”

“I’m not! I mean, obviously I _knew_ you could do it.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You’re such a liar. You thought it would taste like rubbish.”

He looked at me, smiling nervously. “Maybe the thought crossed my mind. But I’m proud of you for making such a good meal, really.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “You’re not making this any better for yourself, Haz.”

“Well, who cares what I thought before. I know better now. Come on, taste it.” He nodded at the chicken in front of me. “It’s really good.”

“Of course it is.” I raised my eyebrows. “I wasn’t the one with doubts about my cooking skills.”

Harry sighed and looked at me with his annoyingly irresistible puppy-dog eyes. “I’m _so_ sorry that I doubted you, Lou. Will you please, please, please forgive me?” he mocked.

“I might.”

“Great,” he grinned. “Because I’m honestly starving, right now. How long did I even sleep?”

Preparing the meal and setting up the table had taken up quite a bit of time, but I hadn’t once looked at the clock, so I had no idea how long I’d spent in the kitchen. Miraculously, Harry had slept through all of it even though I’d been pretty loud with the pots and pans. I should probably avoid having him walking into the kitchen, because it was an absolute mess right now. “Oh, I’m not sure. Couple hours, maybe.”

“You cooked for _hours_?” he asked.

I nodded and finally took a bite from the chicken and mashed potatoes. The taste pleasantly surprised me. Harry was right, it was pretty damn delicious. Maybe I’d found my new goal in life. Maybe I should become a cook.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, it’s a bad idea,” Harry remarked, taking another bite.

I gave him a look. “What, can you read my mind, now?”

“We’re soulmates, Lou. Don’t you know that by now?” he laughed. “You just get a certain look in your eyes when you’ve got crazy ideas.”

“You don’t think I should become a chef, then?”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head and trying to suppress another laugh. “Honestly, I think you were lucky, today.”

I pointed my fork at him, narrowing my eyes. “Watch it, Harold. Or I won’t hesitate to throw my wine in your pretty little face.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Wouldn’t want to waste it, of course.”

“Didn’t think so.”

He shot me a cheeky grin. “Don’t worry. You can cook for me. I’ll hire you as my personal chef.”

“Oh, so now you do believe I can cook?"

“Well, I mean... you should probably get some practice. Otherwise you’ll never learn.”

I folded my arms together. “I don’t even _want_ to be your cook anymore. I’ll find someone who actually _appreciates_ my hard work, thank you very much.”

Harry got up from his chair and walked up to me. He managed to tear my arms away from each other and sat in my lap, making me wrap my arms behind his back. He looked at me seductively, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “I really do appreciate your hard work, little Lou.”

I groaned. “Oh, no. This isn’t going to work, especially not if you call me _little Lou_.”

“But Louis, you _are_ little!” he teased.

“Really? This is how you thank me?” I said, exasperatedly pressing my lips together. “By calling me names?”

“I’m just telling the truth,” Harry said, shrugging.

“Get off me and eat your damn food, Harry.”

Harry laughed loudly, throwing his head back. He enjoyed making fun of me way too much. He stood up and went back to his own seat, then gave me a sweet look. “You sound a bit annoyed, little Lou.”

“Stop it or I will kill you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ll stop! Jeez.”

 

**HARRY POV**

After dinner, we decided to lounge around a bit on the couch. We were being so lazy these days, but I figured I should enjoy these moments with Louis while I still could. Dinner had been lovely and I still couldn't quite believe he'd managed to make such a delicious meal. It had overall just been a really nice gesture and I'd felt very loved tonight.

Fluffy was lying on top of Louis, softly purring as he was petting her and watching the television. The image made me smile, because it reminded me of when we’d first gotten her. He would always fall asleep with her when she was just a little kitten and it was the most adorable thing in the world. I took my phone out of my pocket and tried to sneakily take a picture of them. Too late, I realised that my sound was still on. Louis heard the shutter sound of my camera and right when he looked at me, I quickly took another picture.

“Harry…” he groaned. “What are you doing?”

“You look cute. Lie still.” I made a squeaky sound with my lips to try and get Fluffy to look into the camera, but she wasn’t having any of it. She got up, stretched out her body and jumped off of Louis, scurrying away.

“See? She doesn’t like it either. You’ve chased her away, now.”

I grinned, shifting on the couch as I moved myself on top of Louis and hovered over him. He looked shocked for a second, but didn’t push me off. “More room for me,” I said, feeling flirty. I lowered my face, almost touching his lips with my own. “Do you want me to kiss you?” I murmured.

Louis gave the slightest nod, his eyes widening. I decided to tease him a little more, placing a soft kiss onto his lightly stubbled jaw, before moving up to his mouth again. I kind of expected him to just kiss me and get it over with, but he didn’t. He was actually kind of hesitant, which I wasn’t used to. He’d always been the confident one when it came to things like this, but I guessed he still felt a bit insecure now that he’d lost his memories.

I looked at him questioningly, making sure he was into this. “If you want to stop, just tell me, okay?”

He gave me a small smile in return. “I’m good,” he said and his voice sounded rough, laced with anticipation. I could feel his quick breathing on my face, because he was so close to me. So incredibly close. And then, he finally decided to give in and he kissed me, tangling both of his hands into my hair. I loved the fact that he did that, because he’d always enjoyed playing around with my locks. It was almost like his hands remembered doing this and it took me back to the countless of times we’d been lying on the couch like this before.

He started out his kiss softly and slowly, but then he opened up his lips and I let out a soft moan when his tongue slid into my mouth. I deepened our kiss, putting all the passion that I had into it. This felt so right, but also so wrong at the same time. I felt like I was trying to convince him of something. Hell, I was almost begging him to love me and it was so pathetic… I broke our kiss and moved away from him, sitting at the edge of the couch, not wanting to face him anymore.

I felt Louis stir behind me and as he put his hand on my shoulder, a tear started rolling down my cheek. I hated it with everything I had in me, because it made me feel so weak, but somehow I couldn’t help but feel the way I did. Unsure about everything. Louis was the love of my life and I just felt so unsure if I’d ever get him back the way I wanted to have him… It wasn’t his fault. It was all mine. I wasn’t giving him the time he needed and I was selfish for wanting him to love me again right away. My head knew it didn’t work like that, but my heart just didn’t want to accept that simple fact. I promised him we’d make it work, so why couldn’t I keep that promise now?

“Hey, are you okay?” Louis asked, softly rubbing his hands down my back.

I tried to smile, but I knew he could see right through me. “I’m sorry,” I said, wiping tears from my face for the millionth time this week. “I ruined that completely. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You didn’t ruin anything. Come here, Hazza.” He leaned back against the couch and held out his arms to me in invitation. I hesitated, but then I let myself fall back into his arms. He hugged me tightly against his chest and I sighed.

“I just miss you,” I whispered.

“I know, baby, I know.” He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “But I’m right here.”

 

***

 

I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling Louis’ strong arms wrapped around me. I shivered from the cold and noticed we weren’t covered by any sheets. We’d gone to bed soon after my emotional outburst and he must have started cuddling me in his sleep. Thinking back to our kiss made me feel horrible, but Louis had been nothing but sweet to me. He didn’t judge me for feeling confused and had tried to comfort me as best as he could.

We’d watched a couple episodes of my favourite tv-show together, a teen series about vampires. I knew Louis didn’t like it at all, but he’d offered to watch it with me anyway, because he knew it would make me feel better. We must have fallen asleep while watching, but the tv had shut off by itself and it was completely dark in the room now.

I tried to move, taking a glance at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was only four in the morning. I didn’t want to wake up Louis, but I felt a little gross not having brushed my teeth. When I carefully tried to pry Louis’ arms away from me, he made a disapproving noise. I stilled, hoping he wouldn’t wake up, but it was too late.

He tightened his grip on me and grumbled softly. “What time is it?”

“Four,” I replied. “I’m just going to quickly brush my teeth, okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, still not letting go of me. “Hazza. How are you feeling?”

I smiled, endeared by his concern, but he couldn’t see that in the darkness. “I’m good,” I whispered. “I promise I’ll stop crying from now on.”

He laughed softly. “I don’t care if you do. You can cry buckets if you want. It’s okay.”

“I know. But I hate it.”

“I know you do.” He gave me one last squeeze and then finally released me from his arms, rolling back to his side and crawling under the covers. I got up and remained motionless beside the bed for a moment, just staring at him.

“Thank you for cooking for me today,” I said after a while, not sure if he was even still awake.

“No problem, baby,” he murmured. “Hurry up, I need you back in my arms.”

I giggled, a warm feeling spreading through me. “Okay, okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://angelbabylouis.tumblr.com)!


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